This version of the course guide is provisional until the period for editing the new course guides ends.

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Introduction to Prehistory

Code: 100336 ECTS Credits: 6
2025/2026
Degree Type Year
History FB 1

Contact

Name:
Carlos Tornero Dacasa
Email:
carlos.tornero@uab.cat

Teachers

Nil Ramada Muņoz
Chiara Messana

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

There are no oficial prerequisits


Objectives and Contextualisation

This subject is part of the History matter from the Degree in History. The 30 ECTS (distributed in 6 Prehistory, 6 Ancient History, Modern History and Contemporaneous History) should provide a minimum knowledge in History to get access to more specialized curses in second, third and fourth courses. These curses in History may provide a general knowledge in events, processes and changes in the Human History from a diachronic view, from the Prehistory to modern times, in broad geographical areas. Furthermore, subject in History will provide a first notions about the different perspectives in historical sciences (social, politic, economy, gender, ideology, cultural) as well about theory and methodological tools in History (debates and historiography).


Competences

  • Contextualizing the historical processes and analysing them from a critical perspective.
  • Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  • Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  • Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
  • Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Communicating in your mother tongue or other language both in oral and written form by using specific terminology and techniques of Historiography.
  2. Critically analysing the past, the nature of the historical speech and the social function of historical science.
  3. Developing the ability of historical analysis and synthesis.
  4. Engaging in debates about historical facts respecting the other participants' opinions.
  5. Identifying the context of the historical processes.
  6. Identifying the main and secondary ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
  7. Identifying the specific methods of history and their relationship with the analysis of particular facts.
  8. Interpreting the plurality and heterogeneity of the cultural development of Humanity.
  9. Organising and planning the search of historical information.
  10. Solving problems autonomously.
  11. Using the characteristic computing resources of the field of History.
  12. Working in teams respecting the other's points of view.

Content

PART 1: The process of humanization. The Human Evolution and protagonists. Technology, subsistence and social organization of first hominids.

PART 2: Process of humanization. The debate about the origin and expansion of the modern humans. The prehistoric colonisations. Technology, social organization and subsistence of hunter-gatherer societies during the Middle and Upper Pleistocene.

PART 3: The crisis of the Palaeolithic world and the origin of the peasant societies. The last hunter-gatherer societies and the causes of their transformations.

PART 4: The origin of the husbandry and agriculture. New economic ways of life. Main characteristics of the peasant societies.


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Teaching leassons, seminaries, practical work, and field trips 50 2 2, 5, 7, 8, 4
Type: Supervised      
Supervision 10 0.4 9, 4, 12
Type: Autonomous      
Preparation exams and essays 75 3 10, 3, 6, 9, 11

Directed activities:

- Theoretical classes led by teachers with ICT support

- Group work sessions and debates led by the teaching staff. Collective evaluation and discussion of texts or audiovisuals, individual and / or collective presentations and round of evaluations.

- Practical sessions.

- Field trips: visits to museums or archaeological sites.

 

Supervised activities:

- Concerted sessions to resolve doubts about the development of the subject. Individual or small group advice on specific subject contents.

- Counselling in small groups for the preparation of presentations and scheduled learning exercises.

 

Autonomous activity:

- Personal study. Reading texts. Bibliographic information search.

- Writing of papers. Preparation of presentations, oral comments and debates.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Attendance and activities in the classroom 10% 5 0.2 3, 4, 12
Essays 30% 5 0.2 2, 10, 1, 3, 5, 7, 6, 8, 9, 4, 12, 11
Written exams 60% 5 0.2 3, 5, 7, 6, 8

Assessment modules

 A continuous evaluation of all the activities developed in the subject will be carried out. The evaluation system is organized into 3 modules, each of which will have a specific weight assigned in the final qualification:

 1. The directed activities will be evaluated through two written tests.

 2. Supervised activities will be evaluated through the classroom presentations and activities.

 3. Autonomous activities will be evaluated through two writen essays.

 

Assessment schedule

 At the beginning of the course, students will be informed of the specific contents of the assessment modules and their completion / delivery dates.

In the case of Erasmus students requesting to take an exam early, they must present the professor with a written document from their home university justifying their request.

 

Requirements to pass the subject

 - Attendance at 75% percent of the sessions.

 - Presentation / completion of the evaluation modules on the established dates.

 - Obtaining an average score of the evaluation modules of 5 or more on a scale of 10, provided that a minimum qualification of 4 has been obtained on a scale of 10 in each of them.

 - A student will be considered non-evaluable in the case of non-presentation of one or more modules within the established deadlines or does not attend a minimum of 75% of the theoretical sessions.

 

 Recovery

  • Students who have completed/submitted the assessment modules within the established deadlines, or at least two-thirds of them, will be eligible to take the resit exam.

  • The minimum grade required to participate in the resit will be 3.

  • Only the written test module will be eligible for resit.

  • There will be no limitation on the maximum grade that can be obtained.

    * Those assessment activities in which irregularities have occurred (cheating, misuse of AI, etc.) are not eligible for retake.

Recovery schedule

Recovery dates are set by the Faculty of Letters. These dates have been published on the faculty website since July of the previousyear. It is the responsibility of the students to know the date that corresponds to make the recovery of their subject. The last continuous assessment test will be scheduled at least one week beforethe re-evaluation date.

At the time of completion/delivery ofeach assessment activity, the teacher will inform (Moodle, SIA) of the procedure and date of revision of the grades.

In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

Single assessment
										
											
										
											This subject does not incorporate single assessment.

"Not Assessable" Grade
 The student will receive a “Not Assessable” grade if they have submitted no more than 30% of the assessment activities.

 

Plagiarism or fraudulent conduct

In case a student commits any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade of an assessment activity, that activity will be graded with a 0, regardless of any disciplinary process that may follow. If multiple irregularities occur in the assessment activities of the same course, the final grade for that course will be 0.

Use of artificial intelligence: restricted

This course allows the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies exclusively for tasks such as bibliographic or information search, text correction, and at the discretion of the teaching staff. The student must: (i) identify the parts generated by AI; (ii) specify the tools used; and (iii) include a critical reflection on how these have influenced the process and the final result of the activity.

Lack of transparency in the use of AI in this assessed activity will be considered academic dishonesty and will result in the activity being graded with a 0, with no possibility of retake, or more severe sanctions in serious cases.

 

 


Bibliography

      • BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY:

        AGUSTÍ, Jordi, ANTÓN, Mauricio. 2013. La gran migración. La evolución humana más allá de África. Crítica, Barcelona.

        BARKER, Graeme. 2006. The agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why Did Foragers Become Farmers? Oxford University Press, Oxford.

        CELA CONDE, Camilo José. AYALA, Francisco José. 2013. Evolución Humana. El camino hacia nuestra especie. Alianza editorial, Madrid.

        HIGHAM, Tom.  2023. El mundo antes de nosotros. GeoPlaneta Ciencia

        EIROA, Jorge Juan. 2010. Prehistoria del mundo. Sello Editorial, Madrid.

        LEWIN, Roger; FOLEY, Robert. 2013. Principles of Human Evolution. Wiley-Blackwell.

        LÓPEZ GARCÍA, Pilar (coord.). 2017. La Prehistoria en la Península Ibérica. Istmo, Madrid.

        MENÉNDEZ, Mario (coord.). 2012. Prehistoria antigua de la Península Ibérica. UNED, Madrid

        ROJO, M.A,  GARRIDO, R., GARCÍA, I. 2012. El Neolítico en la Península Ibérica y su contexto europeo. Cátedra, Madrid.

        ROSAS, Antonio. 2016. La evolución del género ‘Homo’. CSIC-Catarata, Madrid.

         

        ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY:

        ADOVASIO, James; SOFFER, Olga; PAGE, Jake. 2008. El sexo invisible. Lumen, Barcelona.

        ÁLVAREZ FERNÁNDEZ, Esteban; BLANCO GONZÁLEZ, Antonio; RIVERO VILÁ, Olivia. 2020. Prehistoria de la Península Ibérica. Ediciones Universidad Salamanca, Salamanca.

        ARSUAGA, Juan Luis. 1999. El collar del Neandertal: En busca de los primeros pensadores. Ed. Temas de hoy, Madrid.

        BERMÚDEZ DE CASTRO, José María. 2021. Dioses y mendigos: la gran odisea de la evolución humana. Editorial Planeta, Barcelona.

        BINFORD, Lewis R. 1988. En busca del pasado. Ed. Crítica, Barcelona.

        DOMINGO, I., PALOMO, A. 2020. Art primer. Artistes de la prehistòria. Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya. Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona.  file:///C:/Users/2011467/OneDrive%20-%20UAB/Escritorio/MAC_CATALEG_ARTPRIMER_SANT_JORDI.pdf

        DÍEZ MARTÍN, Fernando. 2006. El largo viaje. Arqueología de los orígenes humanos y las primeras migraciones. Bellaterra, Barcelona.

        FINLAYSON, Clive. 2020. El neandertal inteligente. Arte rupestre, captura de aves y revolución cognitiva. Editorial Almuzara, Córdoba.

        JOHNSON, Allen W., EARLE, Timothy. 2003. La evolución de las sociedades humanas. Ariel Prehistoria, Barcelona.

        MARTÍNEZ-NAVARRO, Bienvenido. 2020. El Sapiens asesino y El Ocaso De los Neandertales. Almuzara, Córdoba.

        PÄÄBO, Svante. 2015. El hombre de Neandertal: en busca de genomas perdidos. Alianza, Madrid.

        PALOMO, A., PIQUÉ, R., TERRADAS, X. 2017. La revolució neolítica. La Draga, el poblat dels prodigis, Generalitat de Catalunya/ Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya, Barcelona.

        https://www.academia.edu/35841600/Palomo_A_Piqu%C3%A9_R_Terradas_X_ed_La_revoluci%C3%B3_neol%C3%ADtica_La_Draga_el_poblat_dels_prodigis_2017

        PATOU-MATHIS, Marylene. 2021. El hombre prehistórico es también una mujer. Una historia de la invisibilidad de las mujeres. Lumen, Barcelona.

        RICHARDS, M. BRITTON, K.2020. Archaeological Science: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

        RIPOLL LÓPEZ, Sergio (coord.). 2020. Prehistoria I: las primeras etapas de la humanidad. Editorial Universitaria Ramón Areces:Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid.

        ROSAS, Antonio. 2015. Los primeros homininos. Paleontologia humana. CSIC-Catarata, Madrid.

        ROSAS GONZÁLEZ, Antonio. 2019. Los fósiles de nuestra evolución: un viaje por los yacimientos paleontológicos que explican nuestro pasado como especie. Editorial Ariel, Barcelona.

        SANCHIDRIÁN, José Luis. 2012. Manual de arte prehistórico. Ariel Prehistoria, Barcelona.

        TORRE, Ignacio de la. 2008. La Arqueología de los Orígenes humanos en África. Akal, Madrid.

         

        DIGITALS TOOLS:

        The Smithsonian's Human Origins Program | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program (si.edu) main | eFossils Resources

         


Software

None


Groups and Languages

Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2025. You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject.

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(PAUL) Classroom practices 1 Catalan/Spanish first semester morning-mixed
(PAUL) Classroom practices 2 Catalan/Spanish first semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 1 Catalan/Spanish first semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 2 Catalan/Spanish first semester morning-mixed