Jason Ur (Anthropology)
First-Year Seminar 73U | 4 Credits (Spring 2025) | CANVAS SITE
Monday, 3:00 PM – 5:45 PM
Why do Boston, Cambridge, and the towns in the Greater Boston region look the way they do? How did this urban landscape evolve, from the seasonal home of mobile Indigenous communities to a sprawling metropolis? There are clues everywhere, if you know how to look for them. This seminar introduces first-year Harvard College students to the deep history of the (now-) urban landscape in which they now find themselves. The geographic focus will be on Cambridge, but the course will consider greater Boston. We’ll be thinking about Native impacts, initial European colonization, mortuary landscapes, the expansion of agriculture and animal husbandry, new forms of transportation like canals and railroads, the rise and decline of industry, and of course the origins and growth of Harvard College itself. We’ll take the perspective of landscape archaeology, with an emphasis on the physical remails of the past four hundred years. What survives and what doesn’t, and why? Most importantly, we’ll experience these past landscapes firsthand, via trips throughout the region.
Note: Trips will be included. Students will get to know Greater Boston by getting out of the classroom and getting off campus.