Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T02:28:53.807Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Transition Between Palæolithic and Neolithic Times i.e. the Mesolithic Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2013

M. C. Burkitt
Get access

Extract

The problem of the transition period between Palæolithic and Neolithic times has long fascinated prehistorians. Much work has been done and a good deal more is known of this elusive era than was the case formerly, though still many things remain obscure. It is proposed here to try and sketch out what has been discovered with special reference to some of the early cultures of Northern Europe and then tentatively to apply this knowledge to our own country. The problem of the surface finds in East Anglia are very intricate and although it is not the province of this paper to concentrate on them, it is hoped that a little light may be thrown on the subject by this study and that some perhaps helpful suggestion may be made.

As is well known, the difficulty that the early prehistorians had to face was the apparent catastrophic change in everything which took place at the end of Palæolithic times. Suddenly the Palæolithic industries, art and fauna cease, and their place is taken —as it then seemed—by the comparatively monotonous Neolithic industries of the so-called Western Circle with domestic animals, pottery, polished stone axes and a more or less modern fauna, showing that the climatic conditions, far from being arctic, had become reasonably genial.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , 1925 , pp. 16 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1925

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 18 note * Obermaier claims that the paintings on the pebbles represent conventionalised human forms. This result is got by analogy with conventionalisations in the rock shelter Spanish Art Groups. Personally I feel the matter still requires to be proved, for the Spanish Art Group II. is not really analogous, and the Spanish Art Group III, Copper Age times, is far removed in date from the era of the painted pebbles.

It †may be noted that the harpoon was discovered in the talus at the mouth of the cave and that therefore there is no certain stratigraphical horizon to which it can be referred. The bead found with it is certainly newer (Celtic in age) and there still remains some of the gelatine in the bone.

I ‡should like here to try and lay the ghost of the so-called Azilian painted pebbles from Caithness discovered some time ago by Tress Barry when digging in the precincts of a late Celtic brough. I have studied the originals and so has Breuil and they have no relationship with the true Azilian painted pebbles. Unfortunately in the early days when they were found the word Azilian was very tentatively used. Later writers have pushed in where “angels feared to tread” and have been more fatally definite.

page 20 note * I cannot think that without intervening links it is safe to correlate the Magdalenian folk with the Eskimo. It must be remembered that like conditions engender very similar cultures.

page 22 note * This industry may possibly be rather older than transitional times.

page 22 note † Tardenoisean industries have also been found at Aberystwyth, as well as in N. and S. Wales (?)

page 24 note * Before leaving this part of the subject I should like to bring the following table to your notice which gives the various changes in temperature and humidity that took place in Northern Europe at this time

page 28 note * The culture and industries are really the same as the Campignian at Campigny, but the latter is a land habitation of the “Fond de Cabane” type and not a rubbish heap.

page 28 note † This type of tool is found among the surface finds of East Anglia.

page 28 note ‡ In one or two instances examples have been found where the stone tool is still attached to its wooden haft.

page 28 note ∥ Certain pigmy finds with trapezes from the Gudenaa river in Jutland actually seem to indicate a very late Maglemosean in a kind of transition to Shell Mound types (Plate VII.) and an industry said to be of intermediate type and date has been lately found near Gotenburg in Sweden.

page 28 note § There has been one double barbed harpoon found but its age is quite unknown it being an isolated find without stratigraphy.

page 30 note * Personally I stress the “new body of ideas.” I believe that there was less actual replacement of Mesolithic by Neolithic folk in Western Europe than has been assumed. Agriculture and domestication of animals, etc., bettered conditions and thus, in accordance with the Malthusian Law the small population of Mesolithic times rapidly increased. This gives the false idea that Western Europe was invaded and peopled by hordes of Neolithic foreigners.

page 30 note † Proc. P.S.E.A., Vol. IV., 1923Google Scholar. (“A Newly-discovered Transition Culture in North Spain.” By M. C. Burkitt.)

page 32 note * These finds can in part be subdivided locally. They all belong to the Tardenoisean culture, but an earlier industry is related to the English “Provincial Magdalenian”; a slightly later industry recalls exactly the Tardenoisean of Belgium. At one site at any rate the industry is associated with oaks and would thus seem to be rather later in time than the Maglemose, which coincided with the age of pines. However, Maglemosean industries are found in Finland at Kunda with oaks. Further investigation along these lines is required.

page 32 note † Thus Professor Marr has observed some tools similar to those found in North France, as for example at Belloy sur Somme, belonging to an Aurignacian culture. The late Professor Commont noted a similar industry at North Cray (Kent.)