Mesolithic era

The Mesolithic is one period of the Préhistoire which succeeds the Épipaléolithique there are 9 to 10.000 years. This period is marked by many economic and social changes in particular related to the development of the forest in Europe. It is completed between the VIIIe and the thousand-year-old IVe front J. - C. with the beginning of the Neolithic .

Economic transfers, social and cultural

The Mesolithic era is characterized by a certain number of behavioral changes of the human groups, dependant on the postglacial warming Climat ic and to the environmental changes which result from this (forest reconquest, disappearance of the large migrating herbivores such as the reindeer…). The human groups preserve a wandering lifestyle, however the abundance and the diversity of the resources compared to the Ice Age support a nomadism on more restricted territories. Diffusion of cultural features (appearance of the Cutting up Montbani, development of the trapezoids within the group of the reinforcements of arrows…) on important territories shows the possibility for relations between distinct groups. According to J. - G. Rozoy, the close groups met to exchange techniques and food products and to support the Exogamie.

The use of the arc and the arrow, in particular, spreads on the continent of Europe and in Africa. The microlithisation of the reinforcements of hunting is accentuated compared to the previous period: small often geometrical flint elements, the Microlithe S, manufactured then are fixed on poles of bone or wood to be used as projectiles. The hunting of small mammals and the mollusc consumption (Snail S, etc) develop.

Mesolithic independent groups, undoubtedly corresponding more to technical entities that with true cultures, are the Sauveterrien, the Tardenoisien or the Castelnovien in France, the Maglemosien and the Ertebölien in Denmark.

The artistic representations are primarily nonfigurative symbolic system.

End of the Mesolithic era

The passage of the savings in predation to those of production (Neolithic) is called neolithisation. In Western Europe, this cultural upheaval seems primarily related to contacts between intrusive Neolithic groups and Mesolithic groups autochtones. Acculturation and the cultural syncretism are the standard.

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