It is called Mesolithic to the prehistoric period what happened to Paleolithic and preceded the Neolithic. It is a stage that is part of the call Stone age.
Although there are no concrete or precise delimitations, it is estimated that the Mesolithic it started about 12,000 years. His final would have started to develop around the year 9000 BC at Near east (or Middle east), while in parts of the European continent it recently culminated in 4000 BC C.
Like the rest of the Stone age, the Mesolithic it was characterized by the use of stone tools. The peoples of the time were nomadic, although in some regions more sedentary communities began to establish themselves. Along the MesolithicOn the other hand, the hunter-gatherer model was being abandoned.
The diet of Mesolithic was much broader compared to the habits of the Paleolithic. The human being began to eat pigeons, pheasants and geese, among other birds, as well as small mammals. The consumption of snails, roots and fruits also expanded and fishing was extended away from the coast.
Regarding the art, at Mesolithic it became more abstract and geometric. Conceptual manifestations, in this framework, became frequent.
It is important to bear in mind that many of the dietary and cultural modifications of the Mesolithic they were linked to climate changes. At the end of the glaciation, huge masses of ice, causing lowland flooding and rising sea levels. In addition, as the temperature increases, many mammals hunted during the Paleolithic they migrated or even disappeared.
Regarding the name of this period, it was coined by the British researcher John lubbock, who lived between 1834 and 1913 in London, in a work he titled Prehistoric times (Prehistoric times) and published in 1865. It was then that he determined the break between this and the Stone Age. For many years, experts considered the Mesolithic as a kind of transition between two other stages, perhaps of decline, reducing its importance compared to the two periods that enclosed it.
With the arrival of the 20th century, the opinion that researchers had about the Mesolithic changed, because they could demonstrate that there was a well-defined cultural continuity, as a result of which they decided to change the name to Epipaleolithic. This term means “above the Paleolithic” and not all of the community scientist agreed with its adoption. At present, in the Anglo-Saxon world both are used interchangeably, while the French academy distinguishes them as follows:
* they use the term Mesolithic to describe hunting and gathering societies that became farmers on their own, thanks to having developed a series of internal processes over the centuries;
* they reserve the name Epipaleolithic to talk about the societies that only modified their economy based on predation by one based on production as a result of the influences they received from the outside, from peoples who had already entered the Neolithic.
There is, in turn, a third point of view, according to which the Epipaleolithic is related to the societies of the first Holocene, whose tradition it was undeniably Paleolithic, and the Mesolithic is related to those that came later. That said, some specialists suggest using a term specifically for each of these three stages:
* Epipaleolithic: the groups that conserved the Paleolithic strategies but specialized;
* Mesolithic: at first they acted like the previous ones, but later they began to produce their own food;
* Subneolithic: Neolithic neighboring societies that over time assumed these techniques by acculturation (acquiring a new culture or certain features of it).
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