Palaeolithic and Mesolithic: introduction

Note on the dates used in this bookDates before 50,000 are based on various physical dating techniques, other than radiocarbon, and expressed as 'years ago'.Dates in the period 50,000-10,000 years ago are based on uncalibrated radiocarbon dates and expressed as 'years ago' or 'years BP' (= Before Present).Dates in the last 10,000 years are based on calibrated radiocarbon dates and expressed as 'years BC'.Only these dates can be equated with calender or solar years.See chapter i, section 'periods and dates' for the principles of radiocarbon dating. Parti Hunters and gatherersThe Palaeolithic and Mesolithic together span a relatively long period 0/2.5 million years, in uihich the only means of subsistence mere hunting, jishimj and gathering.As the great majority of the Palaeolithic and Mesolitfm artefacts known to us are made of stone, this period is referred to as the 'Stone Age'.In the Palaeolithic, or Old Stone Age, the earliest homimdsgradually evolved into modern humans, just of all exclusively in East Africa and from i million years ago also elsewhere, but only in the past 500,000 years m Europe, too.Towards the end of the Palaeolithic, Jully modern man' or Homo sapiens sapiens, developed an efficient tool lot that enabled him to survive the severe last ice age as a specialist hunter of the large herds of migrating ungulates.His rich spiritual uiorld he expressed in various artforms, the best knoum being the cave art of the Dordogne and the Pyrenees.The archaeological differences between the Upper Palaeolithic and the preceding period are so great as to have triggered an intensive discussion as to hou much the behaviour of the earlier hommids, such as Neanderthal man, resembled that of those later, modern, humans.At the end of the last ice age, around 10,000 years ago, the hunters switched to an entirely new hunting strategy comprising the broad-range exploitation of the uiide diversity of resources that were to be found in theforests and lakes that characterised the landscape of those days.This period of hunters in a temperate climate we call the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age.The key archaeological characteristics of this period are small, geometncflint artefacts, or microliths, with uihich the wooden and bone hunting implements were equipped.In many regions man developed a sophisticated system with strategically positioned sites and seasonal use ofdijferent resources.An important innovation was the intensive exploitation of water using canoes, jish ivetrsandfishingnets.