060075 VO Middle Stone Age vs. Middle Palaeolithic (2024W)

The course is planned as an attendance course (face-to-face).

The lectures give an overview of the Middle Stone Age of Africa and the Middle Palaeolithic of Eurasia. Specifically, we plan to explore how modern humans (Middle Stone Age of Africa) and Neanderthals (Middle Palaeolithic of Eurasia) between 350,000 and 45,000 years ago differed in key behaviours including lithic and organic technologies, raw material economy, mobility and land-use strategies, diet, treatment of the dead, use of personal ornaments and symbols, etc. The lectures will present on specific topics using a range of case studies and examples. In the lectures we will make sure students are exposed to past and current theoretical and interpretative models. We moreover give an overview of current debates and controversies in Palaeolithic archaeology of the Middle Stone Age and the Middle Palaeolithic.
On the successful completion of this course students should have acquired a detailed knowledge about the Middle Stone Age and the Middle Palaeolithic, their relevance to current debates in the field and our understanding of human evolution and the deep prehistory of our species.