136-032 The Ecological History of Humankind

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Subject Description

This subject explores the relationship between biological facts (those governing health and disease) and the social structures and behaviours which effect them. 'Ecological' means the inter-relationship between disease organisms, their human hosts, food supplies, climate and physical environment. But the organisation of societies also affects these ecologies - for instance, the mobility and low density of hunter-gatherer societies prevented the rise of many infectious diseases. The development of agricultural society saw a deterioration in nutrition and human stature, and the transfer of diseases from domesticated animals to humans. As population densities grew, so diseases acquired the host populations to become endemic. Crowded urban industrial conditions and malnutrition spread pulmonary tuberculosis. Diseases have moved around the world with migrations of peoples (cholera), along trade routes (the Black Death), and through the dislocations of warfare (influenza, typhus), and played a major role in the conquest of native peoples in colonialism. This course emphasises the difference between the explanations given at the time and modern scientific explanations of these phenomena. This is a history of humanity's struggle to live in competition with other organisms, and is shaped by scientific knowledge of these organisms as well as historical knowledge of human society over time.

Assessment

Written work totalling 4000 words. There will be hurdle requirements of 80% attendance at tutorials.

Prescribed Texts

• J Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel, The Fates of Human Societies. Jonathan Cape 1997.
• W H McNeill, Plagues and Peoples. Penguin 1998.