Current course offerings

Please Note: Course profiles marked as not available may still be in development.

Course description

ARCA2150 introduces students to the archaeology of ancient states and urban societies through investigation of the region in which they first appeared: southwest Asia (also known as The Near East). Drawing on the archaeological record from Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Levant (Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan), ARCA2150 asks `what is civilisation, when did it start and how do we know?¿ Focusing on the period from c.4000-330 BC, namely the Late Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age, the course investigates how we use the archaeological record from architecture, artefacts, human remains, ecofacts and landscapes to understand the rise, and occasionally the fall, of ancient societies, especially the first cities. Providing context to our investigation of ancient cities and states, the course begins by investigating what came before the first cities, including a look at the Late Glacial world (15,000-9,700 BC) and the Neolithic period, in which the key urban foundations of sedentism and farming were adopted. Understanding the social and economic transformations in those periods and during the urban transition are key themes in the course, as are the development of state and imperial power, globalisation, the effects of acute climate change on ancient civilisations and the evidence for warfare and conquest. ARCA2150 also explores how archaeological and textual information provide complementary evidence to reconstruct past societies and provides a historical and methodological grounding for UQ courses investigating the classical world. ARCA2150 consists of a series of lectures presenting the chronological narrative and key themes of southwest Asian archaeology and practical sessions run with the R.D. Milns Antiquities Museum in which the key classes of archaeological evidence will be investigated.

Archived offerings