Abstract
This contribution will provide a critical overview of the other papers within this special issue of Journal of World Prehistory (Elliott and Little 2018), identifying key aspects of the discussion and assessing potentials and problems in the development of Mesolithic archaeology in Britain and Ireland as a whole since 2006 (Conneller and Warren in Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New approaches, Stroud, Tempus, 2006a). Reflections will include how the contribution of very high-resolution analyses to Mesolithic archaeology has changed since 2006 and the scale of our interpretations. The review will also identify areas which appear to be falling from analytical focus, including the role of analogies in Mesolithic archaeology and the nature of power and social relationships in Mesolithic communities.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Angelbeck, B. (2016). The balance of autonomy and alliance in anarchic societies: The organization of defences in the Coast Salish past. World Archaeology, 48, 1–19.
Angelbeck, B., & Grier, C. (2012). Anarchism and the archaeology of anarchic societies: Resistance to centralization in the Coast Salish region of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Current Anthropology, 53(5), 547–587.
Bailey, G. (2007). Time perspectives, palimpsests and the archaeology of time. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 26(2), 198–223.
Bailey, G. (2008). Time perspectivism: Origins and consequences. In S. Holdaway & L. Wandsnider (Eds.), Time in archaeology: Time perspectivism revisited (pp. 13–30). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Bettinger, R. L., Garvey, R., & Tushingham, S. (2015). Hunter-gatherers: Archaeological and evolutionary theory. New York: Springer.
Bishop, R. R., Church, M. J., & Rowley-Conwy, P. (2015). Firewood, food and human niche construction: The potential role of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in actively structuring Scotland’s woodlands. Quaternary Science Reviews, 108, 51–75.
Blinkhorn, E., & Little, A. (2018). Being ritual in Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: Identifying ritual behaviour within an ephemeral material record. Journal of World Prehistory. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9120-4.
Cannon, A. (Ed.). (2011). Structured worlds: The archaeology of hunter-gatherer thought and action. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing.
Cannon, A. (2014). Historical and humanist perspectives on hunter-gatherers. In V. Cummings, P. Jordan, & M. Zvelebil (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers (pp. 92–103). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cobb, H., & Gray Jones, A. (2018). Being Mesolithic in life and death. Journal of World Prehistory. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9123-1.
Collins, T. (2009). Hermitage, Ireland: Life and death on the western edge of Europe. In S. McCartan, P. Woodman, R. Schulting, & G. Warren (Eds.), Mesolithic horizons: Papers presented at the seventh international conference on the Mesolithic in Europe, Belfast 2005 (pp. 876–879). Oxford: Oxbow.
Conneller, C. (2006). Death. In C. Conneller & G. Warren (Eds.), Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New approaches (pp. 139–164). Stroud: Tempus.
Conneller, C. (2011). An archaeology of materials: Substantial transformations in early prehistoric Europe. Abingdon: Routledge.
Conneller, C. (2012). The Mesolithic. In T. Insoll (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of the archaeology of ritual and religion (pp. 358–370). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Conneller, C., Milner, N., Taylor, B., & Taylor, M. (2012). Substantial settlement in the European Early Mesolithic: New research at Star Carr. Antiquity, 86, 1004–1020.
Conneller, C., & Warren, G. (Eds.). (2006a). Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New approaches. Stroud: Tempus.
Conneller, C., & Warren, G. (2006b). Preface. In C. Conneller & G. Warren (Eds.), Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New approaches (pp. 7–10). Stroud: Tempus.
Currie, A. (2016). Ethnographic analogy, the comparative method, and archaeological special pleading. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 55, 84–94.
Dowd, M., & Carden, R. F. (2016). First evidence of a Late Upper Palaeolithic human presence in Ireland. Quaternary Science Reviews, 139, 158–163.
Elliott, B., & Griffiths, S. (2018). Living Mesolithic time: Narratives, chronologies and organic material culture. Journal of World Prehistory. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9119-x.
Elliott, B., & Little, A. (2018). Introduction: A social history of the Irish and British Mesolithic. Journal of World Prehistory. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9122-2.
Finlay, N. (2004). E-scapes and E-motion: Other ways of writing the Mesolithic. Before Farming, 2004(1), 46–63.
Finlay, N. (2006). Gender and personhood. In C. Conneller & G. Warren (Eds.), Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New approaches (pp. 35–60). Stroud: Tempus.
Finlay, N., McCartan, S., Milner, N., & Wickham-Jones, C. J. (Eds.). (2009). From bann flakes to bushmills: Papers in honour of Professor Peter Woodman. Oxford: Oxbow.
Finlayson, B. (2006). Overview: Setting up questions. In C. Conneller & G. Warren (Eds.), Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New approaches (pp. 165–184). Stroud: Tempus.
Flannery, K., & Marcus, J. (2012). The creation of inequality: How our prehistoric ancestors set the stage for monarchy, slavery, and empire. London: Harvard University Press.
Gilmour, N., & Loe, L. (2015). A Mesolithic cremation-related deposit from Langford, Essex, England: A first for the British Mesolithic. Mesolithic Miscellany, 23(2), 55–58.
Grier, C. (2014). Landscape construction, ownership and social change in the Southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Archaeology, 38(1), 211–249.
Hayden, B. (2014). Social complexity. In V. Cummings, P. Jordan, & M. Zvelebil (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers (pp. 643–662). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Holdaway, S., & Wandsnider, L. (2008a). Time in archaeology: An introduction. In S. Holdaway & L. Wandsnider (Eds.), Time in archaeology: Time perspectivism revisited (pp. 1–12). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Holdaway, S., & Wandsnider, L. (Eds.). (2008b). Time in archaeology: Time perspectivism revisited. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Ingold, T. (2000). The perception of the environment: Essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. London: Routledge.
Johnson, M. (1999). Archaeological theory: An introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Jordan, P. (2003a). Investigating post-glacial hunter-gatherer landscape enculturation: Enthographic analogy and interpretative methdologies. In L. Larsson, H. Kindgren, K. Knutsson, D. Loeffler, & A. Åkerlund (Eds.), Mesolithic on the move: Papers presented at the sixth international conference on the Mesolithic in Europe, Stockholm 2000 (pp. 128–138). Oxford: Oxbow.
Jordan, P. (2003b). Material culture and sacred landscape: The anthropology of the Siberian Khanty. London: Alta Mira.
Jordan, P. (2006). Analogy. In C. Conneller & G. Warren (Eds.), Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New approaches (pp. 83–100). Stroud: Tempus.
Jordan, P. (2011). Material perspectives on the worldview of northern hunter-gatherers. In A. Cannon (Ed.), Structured worlds: The archaeology of hunter-gatherer thought and action (pp. 11–32). Sheffield: Equinox.
Kelly, R. (2013). The lifeways of hunter-gatherers: The foraging spectrum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lane, P. (2014). Hunter-gatherer-fishers, ethnoarchaeology and analogical reasoning. In V. Cummings, P. Jordan, & M. Zvelebil (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers (pp. 104–150). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lillie, M. (2015). Hunters, fishers and foragers in Wales: Towards a social narrative of Mesolithic lifeways. Oxford: Oxbow.
Little, A., Elliott, B., Conneller, C., Pomstra, D., Evans, A., Fitton, L., et al. (2016). Technological analysis of the world’s earliest shamanic costume: A multi-scalar, experimental study of a red deer headdress from the Early Holocene site of Star Carr, North Yorkshire, UK. PLoS ONE, 11(4), e0152136.
McCartan, S., Woodman, P., Schulting, R., & Warren, G. (Eds.). (2009). Mesolithic horizons: Papers presented at the seventh international conference on the Mesolithic in Europe, Belfast 2005.. Oxford: Oxbow.
McQuade, M., & O’Donnell, L. (2007). Late Mesolithic fish traps from the Liffey estuary, Dublin, Ireland. Antiquity, 81, 569–584.
Milner, N., Bamforth, M., Beale, G., Carty, J., Konstantinos, C., Croft, S., et al. (2016). A unique engraved shale pendant from the site of Star Carr: The oldest Mesolithic art in Britain. Internet Archaeology. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.40.8.
Milner, N., & Mithen, S. J. (2009). Hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic. In I. Ralston & J. Hunter (Eds.), The archaeology of Britain: An introduction from earliest times to the twenty-first century (2nd ed., pp. 53–77). London: Routledge.
Milner, N., Taylor, B., Conneller, C., & Schadla-Hall, T. (2013). Star Carr: Life in Britain after the Ice Age. York: Council for British Archaeology.
Mithen, S., Wicks, K., Pirie, A., Riede, F., Lane, C., Banerjea, R., et al. (2015). A lateglacial archaeological site in the far north-west of Europe at Rubha Port an t-Seilich, Isle of Islay, western Scotland: Ahrensburgian-style artefacts, absolute dating and geoarchaeology. Journal of Quaternary Science, 30(5), 396–416.
Moss, M. (2011). Northwest Coast: Archaeology as deep history. Washington, DC: Society for American Archaeology Press.
Mossop, M. (2009). Lakeside developments in County Meath, Ireland: A Late Mesolithic fishing platform and possible mooring at Clowanstown 1. In S. McCartan, P. Woodman, R. Schulting, & G. Warren (Eds.), Mesolithic horizons: Papers presented at the Seventh International Conference on the Mesolithic in Europe, Belfast 2005 (pp. 895–899). Oxford: Oxbow.
Murray, H., Murray, J., & Fraser, S. (Eds.). (2009). A tale of the unknown unknowns: A Mesolithic pit alignment and a Neolithic timber hall at Warren Field, Crathes, Aberdeenshire. Oxford: Oxbow.
Overton, N. J., & Taylor, B. (2018). Humans in the environment: Plants, animals and landscapes in Mesolithic Britain and Ireland. Journal of World Prehistory. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9116-0.
Prentiss, A. (2011). Social histories of complex hunter-gatherers: Pacific Northwest prehistory in a macroevolutionary framework. In K. Sassaman & D. Holly (Eds.), Hunter-gatherer archaeology as historical process (pp. 19–33). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Preston, P. R., & Kador, T. (2018). Approaches to interpreting Mesolithic mobility and settlement in Britain and Ireland. Journal of World Prehistory. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9118-y.
Robb, J. (2013). Material culture, landscapes of action, and emergent causation: A new model for the origins of the European Neolithic. Current Anthropology, 54(6), 657–683.
Robertson, A., Lochrie, J., & Timpany, S. (2013). Built to last: Mesolithic and Neolithic settlement at two sites beside the Forth estuary, Scotland. Proceedings of the Society Antiquaries of Scotland, 143, 73–136.
Roscoe, P. (2009). On the ‘Pacification’ of the European Neolithic: Ethnographic analogy and the neglect of history. World Archaeology, 41(4), 578–588.
Sassaman, K. (2004). Complex hunter-gatherers in evolution and history: A North American perspective. Journal of Archaeological Research, 12(3), 227–280.
Sassaman, K., & Holly, D. (Eds.). (2011). Hunter-gatherer archaeology as historical process. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
Smith, B. (2001). Low-level food production. Journal of Archaeological Research, 9(1), 1–43.
Spikins, P. (2000). Ethno-facts or ethno-fictions? Searching for the structure of settlement patterns. In R. Young (Ed.), Mesolithic lifeways: Current research from Britain and Ireland (pp. 105–118). Leicester: University of Leicester.
Spriggs, M. (2008). Ethnographic parallels and the denial of history. World Archaeology, 40(4), 538–552.
Thomas, J. (2013). The birth of Neolithic Britain: An interpretative account. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tolan-Smith, C. (2008). Mesolithic Britain. In G. Bailey & P. Spikins (Eds.), Mesolithic Europe (pp. 132–157). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Warren, G. (2007). Mesolithic myths. In V. Cummings & A. Whittle (Eds.), Going over: The Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in north-west Europe (pp. 311–328). London: British Academy.
Warren, G. (2013). The adoption of agriculture in Ireland: Perceptions of key research challenges. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 20(4), 525–551.
Warren, G. (2015). ‘Mere food gatherers they, parasites upon nature…’: Food and drink in the Mesolithic of Ireland. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 115C, 1–26.
Warren, G. (2017). Making the familiar past: Northwest European hunter-gatherers, analogies and comparisons. In B. Finlayson & G. Warren (Eds.), The diversity of hunter-gatherer pasts (pp. 148–162). Oxford: Oxbow.
Warren, G., Davis, S., McClatchie, M., & Sands, R. (2014). The potential role of humans in structuring the wooded landscapes of Mesolithic Ireland: A review of data and discussion of approaches. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 23(5), 629–646.
Wengrow, D., & Graeber, D. (2015). Farewell to the ‘childhood of Man’: Ritual, seasonality, and the origins of inequality. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 21, 597–619.
Whittle, A., & Bayliss, A. (2007). The times of their lives: From chronological precision to kinds of history and change. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 17(1), 21–28.
Wicks, K., & Mithen, S. (2014). The impact of the abrupt 8.2 ka cold event on the Mesolithic population of western Scotland: A Bayesian chronological analysis using ‘activity events’ as a population proxy. Journal of Archaeological Science, 45, 240–269.
Wicks, K., Pirie, A., & Mithen, S. (2014). Settlement patterns in the late Mesolithic of western Scotland: The implications of Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates and inter-site technological comparisons. Journal of Archaeological Science, 41, 406–422.
Woodman, P. (2015). Ireland’s first settlers: Time and the Mesolithic. Oxford: Oxbow.
Wylie, A. (1985). The reaction against analogy. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, 8, 63–111.
Zvelebil, M. (2003). People behind the lithics. Social life and social conditions of Mesolithic communities in temperate Europe. In L. Bevan & J. Moore (Eds.), Peopling the Mesolithic in a northern environment (pp. 1–27). Oxford: Archaeopress.
Zvelebil, M. (2008). Innovating hunter-gatherers: The Mesolithic in the Baltic. In G. Bailey & P. Spikins (Eds.), Mesolithic Europe (pp. 18–59). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Aimée Little and Ben Elliott for the invitation to write this review and their support during the drafting, including their very helpful comments on the first draft. I would like to thank all of the authors for providing drafts of their texts to help with this review. I am grateful to Chantal Conneller for collaboration on our 2006 publication and the 2014 Manchester TAG session from which this publication has developed. None of the above are responsible for any errors of understanding or judgement that I may have made.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Warren, G. From Moments to Histories: A Social Archaeology of the Mesolithic?. J World Prehist 31, 421–433 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9121-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9121-3