Neolithic Explanations Revisited: The Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in Britain and South Scandinavia

Abstract

The inception of the Neolithic has always been one of the more vexed questions of British prehistory. As an issue, it has been obscured by a number of conceptual difficulties. Not least amongst these is that the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic coincides with the point at which two different and opposed approaches to prehistory and its teaching meet. The first of these, which dominates the study of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods, is concerned with human behaviour in terms of adaptive responses to environmental pressures. The latter, more common in the Neolithic and later periods, is more likely to consider human beings as purposive subjects, acting in pursuit of socially-defined goals. As a result, the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition represents not merely a change of lifestyle, but also a point at which our perception of the past changes. It is the boundary between two models of man.