Mesolithic age

Also called: Middle Stone Age · Topic: Prehistory: Human Origins and Stone Age Cultures · NCERT: Class 9, Ch 4 "Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation"

Meaning

The Mesolithic age (Middle Stone Age) is the phase of the Stone Age that began about 12,000 years ago, when the last Ice Age ended and the climate warmed. In this phase people made tiny stone tools called microliths, lived mainly by fishing, hunting small game and gathering wild grains, and painted the walls of rock shelters.

It matters because it links the old hunting life of the Palaeolithic to the farming life of the Neolithic. It also saw the first population explosion in human history.

Explanation

Background: a warmer world

• The last Ice Age lasted from over 100,000 years ago to about 12,000 years ago. During it, much of the land was cold, dry and covered in ice.
• About 12,000 years ago the climate warmed up. This change started the Mesolithic way of life.
• Warming changed the land:
• Forests and grasslands spread into areas that ice had covered.
• These new green areas had small game (small animals such as deer, hare and birds), fish and edible wild grains.

• Food could now be found in many more places, in smaller amounts that came more regularly.

• Result: the first population explosion in human history.

• With more food in more places, more people could survive.
• More children lived to become adults.

Tools: the microliths

• Microlith means a very small stone tool, often only 1–5 cm long. Microliths are the main tool type of the Mesolithic.
• They came at the end of a long trend. From the Middle Palaeolithic onwards, stone tools kept getting smaller. They were smallest in the thin, parallel-sided blades and microliths of the Indian Mesolithic. [4]
• Common Indian shapes, dated roughly 10,000–8000 BCE, were backed blades, obliquely truncated blades, points, crescents (lunates), triangles and trapezes. [4]
• How microliths were used (the key idea):
• A microlith was usually not a tool on its own.
• People set several microliths into a handle or shaft of wood or bone. This made a composite tool (a tool made of several parts joined together).

• The finished tools included spearheads, arrowheads, knives, sickles, harpoons and daggers. [4]

• Why this design was clever:

• If one piece broke, only that piece had to be replaced, not the whole tool.
• Less good stone was wasted, and the tool kit was lighter to carry.

Food: fishing as the mainstay

• Mesolithic people ate a broad diet. They did not depend on one kind of big animal.
• Foods from water were central. These came from the sea (marine) and from rivers and lakes (freshwater). Fishing was the mainstay (the main way of getting food).
• They also hunted small game and gathered edible wild grains from the new grasslands.
• Direction of change: people moved from chasing big animals to collecting many small foods they could rely on. Gathering wild grain was the step that later led to farming.

Results: art, shelters and open camps

• Art activity flourished. People painted scenes on rock surfaces.
• Caves and rock shelters were reoccupied. People came back to live in shelters that had been used earlier and then left empty.
• People also lived in open-air camps, as Sarai Nahar Rai shows. Mesolithic life did not happen only in rock shelters. [5]

Time, place and evidence

• Period: from about 12,000 years ago, after the Ice Age ended. Indian microlith types are dated roughly to c. 10,000–8000 BCE. [4] All these dates are approximate.
• Bhimbetka (Madhya Pradesh):
• It lies in the foothills of the Vindhyan hills, on the southern edge of the central Indian plateau, in sandstone outcrops above thick forest. [2]
• It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2003 under criteria (iii) and (iv). [2][3]
• It was discovered in 1957. [3]
• The site covers about 10 km by 3 km. It has more than 700 rock shelters, and over 400 of them have paintings. [3]
• The shelters form five clusters. [2]
• It shows Mesolithic and even earlier occupation. The paintings run from the Mesolithic right through to the historical period. [2]
• The paintings are mainly red and white, sometimes green and yellow. [3]
• They show hunting, dancing, horses and elephants, which means everyday life and rituals. [3]

• The customs of the twenty-one villages next to the site still look like what the paintings show. [2][3]

• Sarai Nahar Rai (Pratapgarh district, Uttar Pradesh):

• It is about 38 km north of Allahabad and 33 km south-west of Pratapgarh town. [5]
• It was discovered in 1968. [5]
• It gave the earliest skeletal (bone) evidence of humans in the Indian subcontinent found at a Late Stone Age site. [5]

• It was an open-air settlement with microliths. [5]

• How we know: the evidence is archaeological. It comes from microlith tools, rock paintings, human skeletons and the remains of camps and shelters.

Don't confuse with

• Palaeolithic age (Old Stone Age): people mainly hunted big animals during the Ice Age and used larger stone tools. The Mesolithic began after the Ice Age ended, with microliths, fishing and small game.
• Neolithic age (New Stone Age): people farmed and lived settled lives. Mesolithic people only gathered wild grains and did not yet sow crops. The Mesolithic is the bridge to farming, not farming itself.
• Middle Palaeolithic: the name sounds like "Middle Stone Age", but it is a stage within the Old Stone Age. In Indian usage, "Middle Stone Age" means the Mesolithic, the phase between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic.
• Bhimbetka vs Sarai Nahar Rai: Bhimbetka (Madhya Pradesh) is known for painted rock shelters. Sarai Nahar Rai (Uttar Pradesh) is an open-air site known for human skeletal remains. [3][5]

Prelims Hooks

• The last Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago. The warming that followed began the Mesolithic and the first population explosion in human history.
• Microliths are the defining Mesolithic tool. They were fixed into wood or bone handles to make composite tools such as arrowheads, sickles and harpoons. [4]
• Fishing was the mainstay of Mesolithic food, using both marine and freshwater sources.
• Bhimbetka: Madhya Pradesh, Vindhyan foothills, UNESCO World Heritage Site 2003, criteria (iii) and (iv). [2][3]
• Bhimbetka in numbers: discovered in 1957, over 700 shelters, over 400 painted, mainly in red and white. [3]
• Trap: Sarai Nahar Rai is in Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh, not Madhya Pradesh. It was found in 1968 and is an open-air site, not a rock shelter. [5]

Mains Points

• Climate shaped culture. The end of the Ice Age caused the whole Mesolithic way of life:
• Warmer land brought forests, grasslands, fish and wild grain.
• This led to microliths and fishing gear, then more people and more art.

• This is a strong example for GS-I questions on how the environment shapes human society.

• Microliths show growing skill, not decline. Small, standard parts that fit into handles are an early form of modular design. They meant lighter kits, less wasted stone, and special tools for fishing, cutting grain and hunting small game. The Mesolithic is also a bridge to farming. Gathering wild grain, staying longer near water and using sickles later became sowing, harvesting and village life.

• Bhimbetka shows cultural continuity. Its paintings run from the Mesolithic to historical times, and nearby village customs still echo them. [2] This supports the view that Indian cultural traditions are long and unbroken. One caution: looking alike is not proof that the villagers descend directly from the painters.

Related concepts

• Microliths
• Bagor
• Adamgarh
• Langhnaj
• Sarai Nahar Rai
• Mahadaha and Damdama
• Lakhudiyar
• Konkan petroglyphs

Read more

• Mesolithic hunter-gatherers