Mesolithic - History of The Concept

History of The Concept

The three -lithics are subdivisions of the Stone Age in the three-age system developed since classical times and given a modern archaeological meaning by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, a Danish archaeologist, in the early 19th century. Subdivisions of "earlier" and "later" were added to the Stone Age by Thomsen and especially his junior colleague and employee Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae. John Lubbock kept these divisions in his work Pre-historic Times in 1865 and introduced the terms Paleolithic ("Old Stone Age") and Neolithic ("New Stone Age") for them. He saw no need for an intermediate category.

When Hodder Westropp introduced the Mesolithic in 1866 as a technology intermediate between Paleolithic and Neolithic, a storm of controversy immediately arose around it. A British school led by John Evans denied any need for an intermediate. The ages blended together like the colors of a rainbow, he said. A European school led by Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet asserted that there was a gap between the earlier and later. Edouard Piette claimed to have filled the gap with his discovery of the Azilian Culture. Knut Sterjna offered an alternative in the Epipaleolithic, a continuation of the use of Paleolithic technology. By the time of Vere Gordon Childe's work, The Dawn of Europe (1947), which affirms the Mesolithic, sufficient data had been collected to determine that the Mesolithic was in fact necessary and was indeed a transition and intermediary between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic.

The start and end dates of the Mesolithic vary by geographical region. Childe's recycled view prevails that the term generally covers the period between the end of the Pleistocene and the start of the Neolithic. The times of these events vary greatly; moreover, the various Mesolithics within the span might be as short as roughly a thousand years or as long as roughly 15,000 years depending on the circumstances. If the Mesolithic is more similar to the Paleolithic it is called the Epipaleolithic. The Paleolithic was an age of purely hunting and gathering while in the Neolithic domestication of plants and animals had occurred. Some Mesolithic people continued with intensive hunting. Others were practising the initial stages of domestication. Some Mesolithic settlements were villages of huts. Others were walled cities. The type of tool remains the diagnostic factor. The Mesolithic featured composite devices manufactured with Mode V chipped stone tools. The Paleolithic had utilized Modes I-IV and the Neolithic mainly abandoned the modes in favor of polished, not chipped, stone tools.

Due to the innovation of a three-stage system for African archaeology by John Hilary Goodman and Clarence van Riet Lowe of South Africa in the early 20th century, translations of "Old," "Middle," and "New Stone Age" can no longer be used for Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic. In African archaeology, which applies only from the Sahara southward, Lower Paleolithic is replaced by "Early Stone Age," Middle Paleolithic is replaced by "Middle Stone Age" and Upper Paleolithic by "Later Stone Age." The Mesolithic and Neolithic are not recognized.