Big History. Three million years of humans on earth

This course aims to provide students from the Humanities and Geosciences, as well as from other faculties, with multidisciplinary perspectives on the joint history of humankind and our planet. Present-day problems such as migration, climate change, social inequality, and natural disasters will be placed in a long-term perspective. This enables students to trace the longstanding roots of such problems, while at the same time it allows them to distinguish decisive turning points, caused by (institutional) shifts in human history and/or (natural) global change.
 

This course takes students back 3 million years in time to identify the first migrations of humans, and how throughout history these migratory movements have been, and continue to be, defined by geology and climate: from the migration out of Africa a couple of millions of years ago to present-day desertification leading to population movements. It shows how humans in turn have affected the natural environment, and which institutions they have developed to structure this influence for better or for worse. In doing so, this course will also throw new light on why human societies have developed so divergently. It examines, for instance, how throughout the past, changing sea levels have affected human societies, ranging from language to religion — in short, how tectonics, climate, and cultural institutions interact.

The students will acquaint themselves with theories and methods from different disciplines to examine the long-term past, while at the same time they will learn how to find common ground between these disciplinary traditions. One important learning outcome will be to help students develop new attitudes towards the place humans occupy on this planet.