ARCH 131 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Rudolf Virchow, Hugh Falconer, James Ussher

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Archaeology
• Course: ARCH 131
• Professor: Dennis Sandgathe

Document Summary

Anthropology includes archaeology (study of past cultures, physical/biological anthropology(study of human biological evolution and remains), cultural anthropology (study of living cultures) and linguistics. Humans are unique because they evolve culturally, in addition to physiologically [bio- To understand the present, we have to study the distant past. In the 9th and 10th century, the arab and asian world were systematically studying how things worked. El-azhar university was established in 975 a. d. , one of the earliest universitys. Prior to the age of enlightenment (1600s), all life in europe was governed by the church, dictated the framework of the world. Irish archbishop james ussher went through the bible geneology, constructed a timeline and concluded that the world began in 4004 b. c. (age of adam and eve) In the 1700s and 1800s, people started having problems with the biblical framework, mainly geologists and paleontologists. Paleontologists were having trouble because having examined fossils in different layers, concluded that if anything, change was constant.