Around 100,000 years ago, the first modern humans, homo sapiens, started to leave their
homelands in Africa and spread to the rest of the world. It took some time, around about
50,000 years, but eventually these people had settled into every corner of the globe
and had developed new societies. Gone were the heavy hand axes of the Paleolithic period
to be replaced by finer and more specialized tools such as these blades. We call this period
of change the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age period. These societies are the first
that we can identify as being direct ancestors of our own way of life and, as we'll see
in this program, a way of life which people today have some hope of recreating.
Our ancestors have been recognizable as man for nearly three million years and throughout
this period they've been unique among all other animals. One thing that has led to this
distinction has been man's ability to produce tools, but he's only understood the use of
metals for a few thousand years. Before this, all implements which needed a sharp edge had
to be made from stone. These tools were not made by one man or even one generation of
men. They cover a million or more years from the old stone age when man the hunter made
chipped stone cutting tools to the new stone age when man the farmer made polished stone
axes. Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Mesolithic, the Middle Stone Age, at the end of the era
of the hunters and before the advent of the farmers. Ten thousand years ago, and the world
was very cold. We are at the end of the last of the great ice ages, but already there are
signs of change. In spite of the intense cold, the ice fields are slowly retreating towards
their points of origin. As the climate grew gradually warmer, billions of tons of water
were blown from the ice fields, raised the level of the ocean, slowly forming great new
seas, and millions of square miles of shallow marshes. Ten thousand years ago, a map of
Western Europe would have looked something like this, and although it was slowly approaching
its modern shape, there were still great land bridges across which the animals and human
populations could move at will. The great hairy animals that the men of the later Paleolithic
drew on their cave walls were becoming extinct in this area as the climate became more temperate.
Paleolithic cultures tended to decline in thickly forested areas, but in the north,
in the great open lands left by the melting of the ice fields, Mesolithic man could wander
freely in search of food. For thousands of years in these surroundings, man was vigorous
and self-sufficient. What were the conditions under which he lived? Much of the land was
still very wet, a heritage from the glacial waters, and huge areas were still under water.
In the early stages of our period, there were relatively few trees, and these were stunted
by the wet and the lingering cold. Birch and willow were the most common. Many of the plants
that we know today, such as buckthorn, thrift, and crowberry, grew freely. We know about
these plants because their pollen grains have been found in association with other remains
of the period. As the climate changed, other trees spread among the birches. For man, as
always, the problem was food, but if he could catch them, there were plenty of animals.
How do we find out about men who hunted fleet-footed animals such as these? The orthodox method
of studying people of the far distance past is to search for evidence by digging in the
ground. But there are other methods. In Jutland, at Yarl Heath, is a huge tract of heathland
with a four and a half mile long lake. Here, there is an open-air museum, part of which
is a reconstruction of a Mesolithic settlement, just the sort of thing that might have been
found here eight or nine thousand years ago. Each summer, university students and their
families come to Yarl Heath and, using the evidence of orthodox archaeology, attempt
to reconstruct the life led by Mesolithic people. This is known as experimental archaeology.
It is, of course, very important to remember that these are 20th century students, not
Mesolithic hunters, or even actors attempting to play a part. The object of the experiment
is to use nothing from the 20th century and to rely only on those things that we know
were available to Mesolithic men. For the experiment, their appearance is irrelevant.
But obviously they had some fun dressing up in a screen. Of course, Mesolithic people
didn't really look quite like this. Rock paintings found in many parts of the world
show prehistoric men hunting deer. A group of students are experimenting with the same
method, successfully, where they manage to kill a deer using weapons of Stone Age type.
Meanwhile, a flint knife has been made by another student. And you can see from this
picture how sharp prehistoric knives would have been. How did they make these? On real
Mesolithic sites, archaeologists find flakes and cores of flint from which they were struck.
Many of the flakes have these naturally knife-like edges. Together with the long flakes, we find
something almost unique in Mesolithic cultures. Tiny flakes of flint known as microlifts.
They were made by snapping flint blades into shorter segments. These were evidently used
as barbs in a bone or wooden shaft. How were they fixed in place? We've already learned
that birch trees were commonly found in the territories occupied by Mesolithic peoples.
Several rolls of collected birch bark have been found preserved in peat on Mesolithic
sites. The bark was heated to extract birch resin. Lumps of this have also been found.
The resin was used to stick the flint bladelets into the slotted bones and would harden out
to hold them firmly in place. Barbed spear tips of bone and antler are also commonly
found in association with other Mesolithic remains. These were shaped with tools made
from flakes of flint. These pictures from Spanish prehistoric sites may date from the
period we're discussing and may show a similar hunting situation. The problem was to get
close to the fleet-footed game such as the wild horses that abounded in this open market
in the north. How did man hope to catch all these at the
fleet-footed game? The Spanish rock paintings show elaborate bows and arrows in use. And
both bows and arrows have been found at a few Mesolithic sites in northern Europe. The
bow may even have been a Mesolithic invention. Mesolithic man also made heavy-duty axe heads,
which he must have mounted in shafts of wood or antler. They were used for felling trees.
Students at Yarlheather found that axes made over 10,000 years ago were still effective.
Even the brushwood from the felled trees sometimes served a useful purpose. The camp area here
is on firm dry land, but lakeside settlements are known where a massive brushwood was laid
out so that the settlement could be established on a fat plan raised above the marsh draft.
The men of the group were hunted, and as with many primitive peoples, the meat was probably
shared with the whole group, whoever caught the animal taking over his farm shares. Mesolithic
man knew all about fire, and finds on some of his sites show that he used iron pyrites
and flint to make a spark. The students of Yarlheather live off the land with a mixed
age group, including older archaeologists and their children, and in all real essentials
follow what we know of the cultural pattern of a primitive society that they are studying.
They hope to deduce from their experiences data that is relevant to Mesolithic cultures.
All primitive communities survive by recognising that every member, other than the very youngest
child, has a responsibility towards the group, and that every member can expect to share
the results of the group's labour. When food is temperate, all will eat well. When food
is scarce, everyone will be given a share of what is available.
As with other early cultures, the women gather food while the men hunt. There would have
been many edible insects, nuts, wild seeds, fruits, fungi and so forth. These women are
collecting crowberries, which grow on dwarf, heather-like shrubs, and we know from pollen
counts that crowberries were common in many areas during the Mesolithic period. Berries
were perhaps collected in natural containers like shells, or roughly woven baskets might
have been made, lined with clay rather like a bird's nest. We don't know much about the
clothes of Mesolithic people, but they probably dried skins, and these would make rough clothes
in light coverings. Weeds or heather could be cut with a toothed knife of microlip, or
it could be pulled up by the roots. It could then be plaited, first into a long strip,
and then wound into a little basket. The students used such baskets for collecting food. Shellfish
were an important part of Mesolithic food, and collecting, as well as cooking, would
have been left to the women and children. There was always plenty to do. As well as
collecting and food gathering, tools had to be made, and huts had to be kept in a pair.
For the women, there was of course the endless task of looking after the children. What did
Mesolithic people say to each other? Yes, the students are talking in Danish, but we
shall never know what the sound of Mesolithic language was. In the archaeological period
before the introduction of writing, there was no way in which language could survive
for us to study. Another great step forward was the invention of the boat. With so much
water around, the invention was probably born of necessity. The idea may have come from
floating logs. Boats were made by cutting down a large tree, roughly adzing it into
shape with a stone axe, and then removing the centre with a fire and sharp flint implements
that could scrape away the charcoal. Experience soon showed the students that unless the fire
was damped down continuously, the boat might soon develop a hole through the bottom. The
students found that it required great skill to make a boat that would stay the right way
up. We know that Mesolithic men used boats of this type because a specimen was discovered
preserved in keep at this age, not far from Jarl Hever. The boat enabled him to cover
great distances, and we believe that Mesolithic peoples left their camps and became nomadic
for much of the year. These people were expert fishermen.
The cultures of Mesolithic men persisted in Northern Europe for about 4,000 years.
By the end of this period, we see the first signs of another important skill, the making
of pottery. Away to the south and east, new cultures had been evolving, cultures that
we call Neolithic, and by the end of the Mesolithic era, their influence had already penetrated
to Northern Europe. Already the local inhabitants were picking up the idea of pottery from the
tribes to the south. They were also learning to adapt their stone tool technology to copy
their southern neighbours, and to sharpen the cutting edge by grinding it on a harder
stone. They were learning to make pestles, and to grind seeds and berries into a paste
for cooking. All these changes in their tools were part of a broader change, that from a
hunting way of life to one dependent on the production of food supplies by various kinds
of farming. As darkness falls, we can almost imagine that the students really are Mesolithic
people, and that soon, 4,000 years of Middle Stone Age culture will be over, and they will
be merged into the new people, the farmers, the people of the new Stone Age.