This course explores the origins and development of diverse societies and civilizations of the world from the Paleolithic era through 1500. The focus of this class is on examining and analyzing the ways in which the world’s peoples and societies compare, connect and/or diverge. Broad themes and major turning points, such as migration, trade, state-building, the Neolithic Revolution, and the development of the first civilizations, lead us to raise questions about the nature of the human experience both past and present.