This course provides students with a cross-cultural perspective on historic and contemporary hunter and gatherer societies from across the world. The course compares and contrasts specific groups to illuminate key variables in their technological, subsistence and political systems. The pressures and responses of hunters and gatherers today to adapt to a constantly changing natural and social environment are discussed. First-year students and sophomores have priority. Art G. Urton A review of the anthropological approach to art with emphasis on structural analysis and the relationship of the artist to his or her culture.
Concentration is on the major art styles outside the Western tradition and the Orient.
This course is open to sophomores and first-year students only. Sculptures and two-dimensional work are considered in the contexts of the cultures that produced them. Although this course aims to isolate the styles of each culture area, it also considers the historical and artistic relationships between cultures which are today widely separated in time and space. This interdisciplinary course studies the development of astronomy, calendars, writing and numeration among early civilizations. Emphasis on cultures of Bronze Age Britain, North American Indians, Maya and Aztec civilizations of Mesoamerica, and the civilization of the Andes.