This course is a field and lab-based introduction to the methods of reconstructing past climates through tree-rings and understanding anthropological and archaeological perspectives on climate-human behavior relationships. Through a collaborative dendroclimatological or dendroarchaeological project, students will sample living or dead trees, measure ring-widths, create a climate reconstruction, and compare this reconstruction to a proximate human history. Climate and human behavior are often linked but climate does not determine human decision-making. In the modern, warming world everyone benefits from knowing where and how data on past climates are generated and how humans have responded to extreme climate events in the past.

Special Topics in Organismal Biology and Ecology - Evolutionary Medicine: Building on prior understanding of evolutionary theory, the course will explore the intersection of major medical issues and evolutionary biology. The ability of evolutionary theory to explain disease processes and patient responses as well as practical applications to improve patient healthcare will be examined. Specific topics covered may include pathogens, cancer, reproduction, and mental health. Prerequisite: consent of instructor & Junior or Senior standing, MB131 AND one of MB201, BE280, BE208, AN202, AN207, AN230. 1 unit – Jabaily, Fish.

This course examines human behavior from biological and evolutionary perspectives, with an emphasis on appreciating humans as a biological species that – like other animals – is shaped by natural and environmental pressures. Lectures, readings, class discussions, and videos will compare and contrast the behavior and biology of humans with other animals, especially our closest living relatives, the nonhuman primates. We will explore the ways behavior can be influenced by environmental factors, biology, and phylogeny. Topics covered in this course include primate adaptations, cognition and learning, human development, social systems, parent-infant relationships, sex and reproduction, aggression and cooperation, and the concept of race.

This course will introduce and allow students to critically explore settler colonialism as a distinct and pervasive form of contemporary colonialism which reproduces white supremacy and social inequalities. The course critically examines anthropology’s participation in colonial discourses that have dispossessed and oppressed indigenous peoples. It further explores settler colonial discourses that manifest in popular culture forms including horror and science fiction narratives.