This course charts the nature of cultural change in Southwest Asia from the beginnings of agriculture and animal husbandry (c.10,000 BC) to the high point of Sumerian and Akkadian civilisation during the third millennium BC. One focus of the study is a comparison of archaeological evidence from Harappan (Pakistan) and Egypt prior to about 2000 BC.

Tutorial attendance (10%), tutorial presentation (10%), test (10%), essay 1 (35%), essay 2 (35%).

2 hours of lectures and 1 hour of tutorial per week

Bellwood, P. First Farmers, Blackwell, 2005.
Crawford, H. Sumer and the Sumerians, Cambridge UP, 2nd ed 2004.
Maisels, C.H. Early Civilisations of the Old World, Routledge, 2001.