Studies of the European Mesolithic have gone through a renaissance since the seminal Warsaw conference on the subject in 1973, and Stefan Kozlowski has been at its heart. This book presents a comprehensive, re-edited selection of his most important writings on the subject, along with new papers written especially for this edition. Kozlowski begins with thematic chapters exploring Mesolithic archaeology's key themes - the technologies people employed, the human ecology of Mesolithic communities and chronology. In a series of core chapters arranged according to European macro-regions, he then examines the diversity of Europe's Mesolithic cultures, remembering Kapuscinski's adage that 'for most people the world ends on the threshold of their own home, the outskirts of their own village, the borders of the valley they live in at the farthest.' He argues that the Mesolithic 'stage' resulted from the adaptation of Palaeolithic tundra communities to the new ecological conditions of the early Post Glacial, to a forested environment where the primitive agriculture that emerged in the Mediterranean region was not possible. With his eye simultaneously on both the continental and local levels, Kozlowski offers a compelling portrait of a period in which Europe was characterised by a wide range of different human ecologies, and seethed with human activity from the Pyrenees to the Urals.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I
  • Chapter 1: Definitions
    • 1.1. The first steps
    • 1.2. Warsaw ’73: introduction to the history of europe in the early Holocene
    • 1.3. Forli ’96: early postglacial adaptations in central europe
    • 1.4. Lille ’00 e pluribus unum? Regards sur l’europe mésolithique
    • 1.5. Stockholm ’00 the Mesolithic: what we know and what we believe?
  • Chapter 2: What and how?
    • 2.1. Stone
      • 2.1.1. Flint and stone tools
      • 2.1.2. Blade/bladelet
      • 2.1.3. Sectioning
      • 2.1.4. Inserts
      • 2.1.5. Geometrization/microlithization
      • 2.1.6. Armatures
      • 2.1.7. Trapezes
      • 2.1.8. Microburins
      • 2.1.9. Tanged (pedonculated) points
      • 2.1.10. Axe/adze/chisel/pick
      • 2.1.11. Irregular scrapers
    • 2.2. Bone and antler
      • 2.2.1. Bone/antler industries
      • 2.2.2. Hunting and fishing gear
      • 2.2.3. Bone equipment of domestic use
      • 2.2.4. Slotted objects
    • 2.3. Wood
      • 2.3.1. Boats
      • 2.3.2. Skis and sledges
    • 2.4. Hunting gear
      • 2.4.1. Bow
      • 2.4.2. Arrows and arrowheads
      • 2.4.3. Fishing spears and harpoons for hunting
      • 2.4.4. Shafts from Stellmoor
      • 2.4.5. Arrow from Loshult
      • 2.4.6. Hafting trapezes
      • 2.4.7. Auroch from Prejlerup
      • 2.4.8. Pike from Kunda lake
      • 2.4.9. Quivers and handles from Oleni Ostrov
      • 2.4.10. Harpoons from High Furlong
    • 2.5. How?
      • 2.5.1. Numbers and percentages
      • 2.5.2. “Stone” and “bone” cultures
      • 2.5.3. The last “Indians” of Europe?
      • 2.5.4. The population of Mesolithic Europe
      • 2.5.5. Dwellings
      • 2.5.6. Camp
      • 2.5.7. At home and abroad
      • 2.5.8. Seasonality
      • 2.5.9. Forest trappers?
  • Chapter 3: Where?
    • 3.1. The screen
      • 3.1.1. The relief
      • 3.1.2. The mountains
      • 3.1.3. The sea
      • 3.1.4. The maritime coast
      • 3.1.5. Shell middens
      • 3.1.6. Islands
      • 3.1.7. The changing shape of a continent
      • 3.1.8. Inland
    • 3.2. The resources
      • 3.2.1. Forest
      • 3.2.2. Steppe
      • 3.2.3. Lake and river
      • 3.2.4. Game
      • 3.2.5. Mollusks
      • 3.2.6. Economic potential of Mesolithic Europe
      • 3.2.7. Raw material
  • Chapter 4: There!
    • 4.1. Pyrénées, Alpes et Carpates: barrières culturelles pour les derniers chasseurs-prédateurs
    • 4.2. Mesolithic settlement pattern
    • 4.3. Une cartographie des éléments typologiques mésolithiques en Europe
    • 4.4. Atlas of the European Mesolithic
    • 4.5. The “Stories” of some Microliths
      • 4.5.1. K-points
      • 4.5.2. Pe-points
      • 4.5.3. Les pointes PB et PC
      • 4.5.4. Rectangles, rhomboids and trapezoids in the Northern and Western European Mesolithic
      • 4.5.5. Some general remarks after mapping the K, PE, PB, PC, RA, RB and RC microliths
      • 4.5.6. Mapping the Mesolithic
  • Chapter 5: When?
    • 5.1. Chronology
    • 5.2. Conservative character of Mesolithic cultures
    • 5.3. West, center and south
      • 5.3.1. Koine
      • 5.3.2. Rhythms
      • 5.3.3. … and no rhythm – problems of uneven development
      • 5.3.4. Early–Middle–Late Mesolithic
    • 5.4. The main evolutive trends in the European Mesolithic
      • 5.4.1. Azilianization
      • 5.4.2. Sauveterrization
      • 5.4.3. Trend with trapezes
      • 5.4.4. Castelnovization
      • 5.4.5. Ceramization of the Mesolithic
• Part II: Regions
  • Stylistic/“cultural” differentiation of the European Mesolithic
  • Chapter 6: South
    • 6.1. Italy
    • 6.2. The Trentino Sequence
    • 6.3. Central Italy (Tuscany)
    • 6.4. The South of Italy
    • 6.5. Eastern and Northeastern outlying areas
    • 6.6. Iberia
  • Chapter 7: The Southeast
    • 7.1. Eco-cultural/stylistic zonation of the Mesolithic in Central and Southeastern Europe
    • 7.2. Slovenian Mesolithic
    • 7.3. Lepensky Vir lithics
    • 7.4. Vlasac
  • Chapter 8: The West and the Center
    • 8.1. Les courants interculturels dans le Mésolithique de L’Europe Occidentale
    • 8.2. The West (Beuronian) and Rhenanian Beuronian
      • 8.2.1. La Cartographie du Beuronien (Culture Beuron-Coincy)
      • 8.2.2. Ost Beuronien und Ost Sauveterrien
      • 8.2.3. Le Beuronien recent
    • 8.3. The “Sauveterrian Commonwealth” or the West between the South and the Center
    • 8.4. After sauveterrization
    • 8.5. The Center: Maglemosian
      • 8.5.1. The South Scandinavian sequence
      • 8.5.2. The Northern or Maglemosian Complex
      • 8.5.3. Epi-Ahrensburgian
      • 8.5.4. Local and foreign elements in the British Mesolitic
      • 8.5.5. Le Komornicien et ces liens occidentaux (Duvensee – Star Carr – Komornica)
      • 8.5.6. The Early/Middle (and Late) Eastern Maglemosian
      • 8.5.7. The Eastern Post-Maglemosian
  • Chapter 9: The East
    • 9.1. The Northeastern flint tools
      • 9.1.1. The Northeastern technocomplex
      • 9.1.2. The Lithuanian variant of Kunda Culture (Western Kunda)
      • 9.1.3. Kudlaevka culture
      • 9.1.4. Push to the extreme North
      • 9.1.5. The Early and Middle Holocene Cultures of the Western part of Eastern Europe
    • 9.2. Caspian-Caucasian industries
      • 9.2.1. The Shan-koban
    • 9.3. “Model A” Castelnovian cultures in the East
  • Chapter 10: The North
    • 10.1. The Scandinavian tanged points
    • 10.2. The TPC in its younger phase
    • 10.3. Desna culture
    • 10.4. Sandarna
    • 10.5. Microbladelets (Limhamn in Sweden, Nøstvet in Norway)
  • Chapter 11: Castelnovian/Pre-Neolithic
    • 11.1. The Pre-Neolithic (Castelnovian) base of the Early Neolithic stone industries in Europe
    • 11.2. The castelnovian complex
      • 11.2.1. Janislawician
    • 11.3. Para-Castelnovian(?) cultures of the Pontic Steppe
    • 11.4. Pontic elements in the Late Mesolithic of the Vistula and Boh (Southern Bug)-Dniester basins
    • 11.5. The Mesolithic: between East and West
    • 11.6. Gaban
    • 11.7. Latronico
    • 11.8. Leduc 2
    • 11.9. Odmut
  • Chapter 12: Bone, antler and amber
    • 12.1.1. Pointes, sagaies et harpons du Paléolithique Final et du Mésolithique en Europe du Centre-Est
    • 12.1.2. Late/Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic bone/antler points and harpoons in Central Europe
    • 12.2.1. L’art zoomorphique mésolithique de la Circum-Baltique
    • 12.2.2. Woman’s statuette from Gaban
    • 12.2.3. Art and ornaments of the European Mesolithic
  • Chapter 13: The final score
• Bibliography