The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods are concerned with the fundamental developments in physical and cultural evolution which brought humanity from its very earliest hominin ancestry to a stage (the Neolithic) at which agricultural food production became the economic norm. These developments took place over an enormous extent of time – several million years – and against a backdrop of major climatic, geophysical, and ecological changes during the Pleistocene and early Holocene (Bell & Walker 2005).
Distribution map of sites mentioned in the text © RCAHMS. Site lists and this distribution map can be downloaded from here.
