Mesolithic

The Mesolithic (Greek mesos=middle and lithos=stone or the 'Middle Stone Age'^[1]) was a period in the development of human technology between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods of the Stone Age.

Remains from this period are few and far between, often limited to middens (rubbish heaps which grew over time). In forested areas of the world, the first signs of deforestation have been found, although this would only start in earnest during the Neolithic, when extra space for farming was needed.

The Mesolithic is characterized by small composite flint tools (microliths and microburins) in most areas. Fishing tackle, stone adzes and wooden objects such as canoes and bows have been found preserved at some sites.

The term

"Mesolithic" mainly applies to the development in Northern Europe. However, it is also used for the Levant, with some criticism. Others^{[attribution needed]} like to call the same period in the Levant the Epipalaeolithic period.

British archaeologist Steven Mithen, in his award-winning book After the Ice, identifies the term specifically with a certain subset of European hunter-gatherer cultures that were directly descendant from the European Paleolithic and rejects the Mesolithic label for the Levant and Anatolia, where the contemporary cultures were Neolithic and had evolved directly out of the Paleolithic cultures of West Asia.^[2]

Mesolithic cultures, as designated in this way, are distinct from Paleolithic cultures in their tendency toward more partially sedentary settlements, emphasis on fishing, reliance on bow-hunting over spear-hunting, and far more advanced social and ritual structure. They are distinct from Neolithic cultures in their absence of farming and pastoralism.^[3]

In Europe

It began at the end of the Pleistocene epoch around 11000 BC and ended with the introduction of farming, the date of which varied in each geographical region. In some areas, such as the Near East, farming was already in use by the end of the Pleistocene, and there the Mesolithic is short and poorly defined. In areas with limited glacial impact, the term Epipaleolithic is sometimes preferred. Regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last ice age ended have a much more apparent Mesolithic era, lasting millennia. In Northern Europe, for example, societies were able to live well on rich food supplies from the marshlands created by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human behaviors which are preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian and Azilian cultures. Such conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until as late as 5000 BC in Northern Europe.

As what Mithen terms the "Neolithic package," including farming, herding, polished axes, timber longhouses and pottery, spread into Europe, by routes that remain controversial among scholars, the Mesolithic way of life was marginalized and eventually disappeared. Some late Mesolithic groups, such as Denmark's Erdbolle culture, did make some pottery and did engage in significant trade with Neolithic groups directly to their south.^[4]

Mithen notes that Mesolithic cultures were a historical dead end, unlike the somewhat earlier cultures of the late Paleolithic period in West Asia, which were evolving steadily toward the Neolithic. At the same time, genetic studies strongly suggest that modern Europeans' ancestry, especially their matrilineal mitochondrial DNA, is descended directly from these Mesolithic peoples, who must have eventually adopted the Neolithic way of life that had come to them from West Asia.^[5]

In the Levant

The designation of Asian cultures as Mesolithic is so controversial that many scholars would prefer the term were not applied in Asia. When it is used, the cultures are both earlier than and utterly dissimilar to the European cultures for which the term is normally used.

For those who do apply the term in Asia, there are two designated periods. Mesolithic 1 (Kebara culture; 20-18,000 BC to 12,150 BC) followed the Aurignacian or Levantine Upper Paleolithic throughout the Levant. By the end of the Aurignacian, gradual changes took place in stone industries. Microliths and retouched bladelets can be found for the first time. The microliths of this culture period differ greatly from the Aurignacian artifacts.

By 20,000 to 18,000 BC the climate and environment had changed, starting a period of transition. The Levant became more arid and the forest vegetation retreated, to be replaced by steppe. The cool and dry period ended at the beginning of Mesolithic 1. The hunter-gatherers of the Aurignacian would have had to modify their way of living and their pattern of settlement to adapt to the changing conditions. The crystallization of these new patterns resulted in Mesolithic 1. New types of settlements and new stone industries developed.

The inhabitants of a small Mesolithic 1 site in the Levant left little more than their chipped stone tools behind. The industry was of small tools made of bladelets struck off single-platform cores. Besides bladelets, burins and end-scrapers were found. A few bone tools and some ground stone have also been found.

These so-called Mesolithic sites of Asia are far less numerous than those of the Neolithic and the archeological remains are very poor.

Mesolithic 1 started somewhere around 18,000 BC in Palestine. The change from Mesolithic 1 to Mesolithic 2 can be dated more closely. The latest date from a Mesolithic 1 site in the Levant is 12,150 BC. The earliest date from a Mesolithic 2 site is 11,140 BC. The 10th millennium BC seems to correspond with three other sites at Kebara (9200 BC), Mugharet el Wad (9970 and 9525 BC), and Jericho (9216 BC). However, other sites suggest an even later start via dates of 8930 and 8540 BC. It would thus appear that Mesolithic 2 (Natufian) culture emerges around 11,000 - 9000 BC in Palestine and Lebanon. Mesolithic 2 is characterized by the beginnings of agriculture, which would emerge fully in the Neolithic period.

See also

• Jōmon period

Mesolithic sites in Wikipedia

• Star Carr, England - 8700 BC
• Pulli settlement, Estonia - 9000 BC
• Lepenski Vir, Serbia - 7000 BC
• Franchthi cave, Greece - 20,000-3000 BC
• Cramond, Scotland - 8500 BC
• Mount Sandel, Ireland - 7010 BC
• Howick house, England - 7000 BC
• Newbury, England
• North Park Farm, England

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Mesolithic

• Mesolithic Miscellany - Newsletter and Information on the European Mesolithic
• 20th Century Mesolithic Sites in Mandla (Madhya Pradesh), India, discovered by Dr. Babul Roy see at <http://highland.trf.or.th/News1/SEAnews/SEAnewletter/SEAN15$.pdf> < http://www.insulators.com/clubs/bric/aug03.htm> and also in <http://www.prehistory.wetpaint.com >

Notes

1. ^ This translation can be ambiguous since Middle Stone Age is an older African prehistoric period.
2. ^ Mithen, Steven. "After the Ice: A Global History 20,000 - 5,000 B.C." 2004. Harvard Univ. Press
3. ^ Mithen, 2004
4. ^ Mithen, 2004
5. ^ Mithen, 2004

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