Unit 2: Greece

One of our ongoing themes in the course has been how climate change has effected the course of human history. Check out how a volcano explosion is the best explanation we have for the sudden end of the Minoan civilization.

"Yet do not bring up against me the sweet favours of golden Aphrodite.

Never to be cast away are the gifts of the gods, magnificent,which they give of their own will, no man could have them for wanting them."

-Paris, on defending his decision to burgle Helen- The Lliad

Indus Valley Script

The Indus valley was home to another original civilization, contemporary to the Mesopotamian and the ancient Egyptians. However, their writing system remains undeciphered. Check out the modern research methods being utilized in cracking the code.

Nat Geo article on Sumer (1997)

Day 5: Epic of Gilgamesh & Review

The Epic of Gilgamesh

and

Week 1 Review Sheet

Day 4: The First Cities and Civilization

Day 3: Civilization and Cities on Prezi

Day 3: The Neolithic and the Agrarian Revolution

Major theme in today's lecture was Climate change and it's effect on the transition to sedentism, check out this video from Nat Geo:

Day Two: The Big Bang, Human Emergence & Paleolithic life

Lecture 1: universe origins and paleolithic life on Prezi

check out David Christian's TED talk for a quick sweep of time before Humans, and an introduction to "thresholds of increasing complexity"
we'll be continuing to use his concept of "collective learning" throughout our exploration of ancient and classical Humanities

For more information on the Big History Project, check out their website:

http://www.bighistoryproject.com/

Click here for an interactive timeline of human evolution

and here for an interactive documentary

we also looked at a National Geographic video exploring Mesolithic artifacts:

Day One: Course intro

asdas on Prezi

We also took the pretest, click HERE for a google documents version

A brief course outline

Check out an outline of course material by week here

THE SYLLABUS

Check out a preview of this years course!

Here is a Google Docs version: SYLLABUS