Spring 2027

Ancient Animals and Peoples

Introduction to human and animal relationships from prehistory to the present, focusing on domestication's impact on societies and animals through cross-cultural examples.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

What you’ll be able to do

  • Develop skills in searching for and identifying literature using online and library resources, and gain familiarity with citing and referencing different source types.

  • Synthesize scholarly articles in the areas of animal science, archaeology, biology, and history.

  • Understand animal-human interactions from a global and historical perspective.

  • Evaluate the archaeological, historical, and genetic lines of evidence used to generate hypothesis on past animal-human interactions.

  • Develop a general chronology of the history of animal husbandry, livestock, and pet keeping around the world.

  • Analyze the process of artificial selection and the different pathways to domestication (commensal, prey, or directed).

  • Differentiate domesticated from tamed from feral and identify the behavioral and biological characteristics which makes certain animal favorable to domestication.

  • Apply course material to evaluate the role of past animal interactions on contemporary issues in conservation and food security.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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Prerequisites

Course map

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ANSCI 240

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Professors

Spring 2027

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Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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Student experience

the class

Provides an introduction to human and animal relationships from prehistory to the present. Examines how animals have influenced social and economic structures of past societies, with a focus on the advent of domestication. Explores the cultural and economic changes that domestication has had on human societies, as well as the behavioral, genetic, and morphological changes that this process had on once wild animals. Emphasizes the methods used to retrace human-animal interactions, drawing on cross-cultural examples from anthropology, ethnozoology, archaeology, history, and genetics.

difficulty & workload

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Topics

  • Social and economic influence of animals in past societies and the advent of domestication.
  • Cultural, economic, behavioral, genetic, and morphological changes resulting from domestication.
  • Methods to retrace human-animal interactions using anthropology, ethnozoology, archaeology, history, and genetics.
  • Contemporary issues in conservation and food security related to past animal interactions.

Skills

  • Searching for and identifying literature using online and library resources, and citing and referencing different source types.
  • Synthesizing scholarly articles in animal science, archaeology, biology, and history.
  • Evaluating archaeological, historical, and genetic evidence to generate hypotheses about past animal-human interactions.
  • Analyzing artificial selection and pathways to domestication including commensal, prey, and directed models.

Grades

Instructor

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Sources & history

UW–Madison

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

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Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "c79b362c424076c707df26fad97a4dfd832e88f271751b8122c2838e8d1b1837",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}