Introduction / The Irish Mesolithic / Mesolithic society
Conclusions / Notes and References
       
 

1. Microlith: a tiny stone tool, usually triangular, found in Mesolithic sites in Europe usually dating from 12,000 to 3,000 BC. Return to text. 2. The Upper Paleolithic (c 33,000 - 10,000BC) is the time in which elaborate cave paintings and carvings were made. In Europe, the majority of these types of works are found in France and Spain. Return to text. 3. By "physical culture" I mean clothing, personal items, housing, household goods. Return to text. 4. No bone tools have yet been found. Return to text. 5. Ethnographic studies around the world show that red ochre is often used in the treatment of animal skins. Experiments show that is was probably used as a additive at the end of the tanning process, acting as a fine abrasive and coloring material, giving the dried tanned hides a soft velvety feel and rich color. People the world over have used ochre to protect the skin from the elements and insects, it is still used in parts of Africa to clean and cauterize wounds. This use may help explain the use of the pigment in burial, not so much a religious as a utilitarian use to preserve the corpse and reduce odors. Return to text 6. On the continent and in England there is evidence of regular forest and marsh clearing through burning and also some signs of planned hunting to maintain certain herd characteristics, such as a greater percentage of animals of a certain age. Return to text. 7. This is when the body/bones are moved from one location to another. Perhaps when the family moved to another far-removed site, they took the bones of the kin with them. Return to text. 8. When a second burial is added at a later date in the same location as the first. Return to text. 9. To impose or project human characteristics on non-human forms, such as plants, animals, birds, fish, climatic conditions, geographic features, rivers, planets and stars etc. Return to text. 10. Origins of War; Mesolithic conflict in Europe Return to text. 11. Seed-centric: a word I made up to define seed planting people who believe that their way of doing this is superior to others. In the same was as the word Euro-centric defines someone who believes that European based cultures are superior to any others. Return to text.

 
       
 

G. Cooney and E. Grogan Irish pre-History; a social perspective, Wordwell, 1994 Judith M. Grünberg Mesolithic burials in Europe; an approach to comparative burial analysis Peter Harbison Pre-Christian Ireland. Thames and Hudson, 1988. Stephen Mithen The Thoughtful Forager, Cambridge University press, 1990 S. Piggot, G. Daniel, C. McBurney editors France before the Romans, Thames and Hudson, 1973 Paul Shepard Coming Home to the Pleistocene, Island press, 1998 The Others, how animals made us human, Island press, 1996 Thinking Animals; animals and the development of human intelligence, U.of Georgia, 1978, 1988 John Waddell The Pre-Historic Archaeology of Ireland, Galway University press, 1998 Alasdair Whittle Europe in the Neolithic, Cambridge University press, 1996 P. C. Woodman The Mesolithic in Ireland, BAR Series #58, 1978 Europe During the last 150,000 years Jonathan Adams, Environmental Science Division, Oakridge National Laboratory. Royal Botanical Gardens database Three Mesolithic houses discovered near Avebury British Archeology on-line

 
Introduction / The Irish Mesolithic / Mesolithic society
Conclusions / Notes and References