Human life is rooted in the soil, both literally in our land-based agriculture over the last ten thousand years, and metaphorically in our more recent urban cultures. Soil and water management have been closely tied to the advances, declines, and regeneration of simple human societies and complex civilizations for millennia, especially in our quest to grow food in challenging environments with too little or too much water under unstable climatic conditions.

In this course, we will study the interplay and dynamics of soils and civilizations by applying modern knowledge from soil science, environmental history, and terrestrial ecology to the ancient Maya from Mesoamerica and the Anasazi from the Southwest. Soils, history, and ecology will be woven together in ways that will introduce key ideas at an introductory level; while showing how we can apply modern learning to the mysteries of ancient cultural change.

Lectures based on discovery and questioning will introduce students to the nature of civilization and the underlying sciences, followed by extensive discussion. The Maya and Anasazi case studies will challenge the students to examine their perceptions of what is a modern, sustainable human culture in light of disturbances of ecosystems and challenges to complex societies. Readings of approximately 50 pages per week will be from materials assembled by the study leader. Some films will complement the readings and lecture material.