CCI La Longue Duree Tutorial 1 March 1st - 5th

Week 1

Tutorial: La Longue Durée [Braudel, Cunliffe, Mithen & Mellars]
Week 1: 1st- 5th March
pp 1- 55

1. What is meant by (a) ‘historiography’ and (b) ‘cognitive geography’. [2+3]
2. How could Miletos be said to have had ‘a favourable position’ for intellectual innovation and discovery? [3]
3. Explain Braudel’s conception of historical time. [6]
4. In what ways may ‘the holding capacity of a particular environment […] change’? [3]
5. Explain Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory. How succesful do you think it can be in thinking about the ancient world? [5]
6. Explain the meanings and dates for Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic. [4]
7. Explain (a) the factors that cause natural global warming, (b) the LGM and (c) the significance for human life of warmer, wetter, stabler conditions after 9,600 BC. [3+1+6] 29-38
8. How does Mellars account for the relatively sudden appearance of Upper Palaeolithic culture? [7]
9. What are the social and economic features of Upper Palaeolithic communities which distinguish them and may partially explain their successes? [10]
10. Mellars surveys various theories for the emergence and proliferation of mobiliary and parietal art in the Upper Palaeolithic, what general features does he deduce from his brief survey of the various interpretations and what does he himself argue is the most productive approach to the phenomenon? [10]