The aim of this seminar is to discuss in an interdisciplinary approach, the influence of climate changes on human history: its extent and its modes. The discussion will focus on the history of the Near East (The eastern Mediterranean). We shell examine possible links between significance transformation and revolutions in human societies such as the spread of Mankind out of Africa or the social and economic crisis in the Middle East during the 10^th-11^th centuries CE, and recorded changes in the climate conditions. The examination will be conducted by incorporating all possible sources of information: the pleo-climate records (Isotope analysis, pollen, sea and lake level changes), contemporary written evidence (in cases that such record exist) and the settlement and cultural patterns as they are reflected in the archaeological record.

Case studies which will be discussed in class include (among others):

The spread of the Homo Erectus out of Africa ca. 2 million years ago; The spread of the Archaic Homo Sapiens out of Africa; the Younger Dryas event and the domestication of plants and animals; the rise of urbanism during the Early Bronze Age; the Late Bronze Age collapse; the crisis years of the 10^th-11^th centuries CE and finally the Little Ice Age and its effect on human societies during the mid-14^th- mid-19^th centuries CE.