The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

Chapter Three
Hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic
Steven Mithen
The last Ice Age came to an end
10,000 radiocarbon years ago.
Tundra landscapes that supported
reindeer herds were colonized by
birch and soon became thick
deciduous woodland with dispersed
fauna including red deer and pine
marten. Except in the far north,
relative sea-levels rose so that
Britain, formerly a peninsula of
Europe, had become an island by
8,500 years ago. In this rapidly
changing environment, people
continued to live by hunting and
gathering for several thousand years
until agriculture became an
established way of life. This period
was the Mesolithic (Figure 3.1).
THE ENVIRONMENTAL
CONTEXT FOR
MESOLITHIC SETTLEMENT
Eighteen thousand radiocarbon
years ago, ice sheets extended
southwards to central England,
beyond which lay an uninhabited
polar desert. As the climate
improved, Lateglacial hunters again
came northwards (Chapter 2). By
10,000 years ago, the global warming
that marks the end of the
Pleistocene was established: in a few
decades, temperatures rose Figure 3.1 Mesolithic sites referred to in this chapter.