Torrence demonstrated that technological complexity varied with latitude (1983, figs. 3.1, 3.2). She suggested that economic activities in higher latitudes were more likely to be “time stressed” because resource availability was concentrated into ever more limited periods as latitude and seasonality increased. The shorter the period a resource is available, the more specialized the technology must be to maximize procurement in the brief time available (Torrence 1983). When the Mesolithic is considered in this light, it is evident that a technology less specialized than that of the Upper Paleolithic would be expected because conditions changed from arctic to temperate. Arguably, this is what the microlith represents: an unspecialized blank capable of use in a wide variety of tools. Thus, anthropology provides an alternative to the view that the Mesolithic was a period of cultural retrogression: a less specialized technology can be seen as an adaptation to less time-stressed activities.

This section has sought to demonstrate the transition from a cultural to a behavioral perspective by European Mesolithic studies, and recent syntheses do indeed combine archaeology with anthropologically derived concepts (for a good example in the British context, see Smith 1992). The study of hunter-gatherers is perhaps the area of archaeology in which the behavioral perspective is most developed, and the Mesolithic certainly used to be regarded as the most retrogressive period in European prehistory. The changes described earlier therefore amount to probably the biggest shift in views anywhere in European prehistory.

Regional Perspectives

This section will present a discussion of work in various areas of Europe. In no sense can the presentations that follow be considered reviews; space permits the inclusion of only a few aspects of work and a small number of publications. The coverage is intended to emphasize variability.

The Mesolithic is sometimes thought of as a temperate forest phenomenon, but, although southern Scandinavia is indeed in the temperate zone, Iberia is mostly Mediterranean in climate, and the upper reaches of Norway lie far north of the Arctic Circle.

Southern Scandinavia

It is appropriate to begin with the region that has both the earliest work and the most complete record of any in Europe. Good reviews of the Danish and southern Swedish Mesolithic can be found in Brinch Petersen (1973), J.G.D. Clark (1975), and Price (1985).

The earliest phase of the Mesolithic is represented by only a few sites, such as Klosterlund. The second phase, characterized by lanceolate and triangular microliths (see the previous discussion), is the period of the Maglemose culture, falling in the eighth millennium b.p. Most sites lie on the banks of former lakes that have since filled with peat, creating excellent conditions for organic preservation. Many sites were discovered during peat cutting in the early years of the twentieth century, and some of these have been published, including Ulkestrup (K. Andersen, Jørgensen, and Richter 1982), Sværdborg I (Henriksen 1976), and Lundby (Henriksen 1980). The sites are all small, and sometimes they include the preserved bark floors of small dwellings (e.g., at Ulkestrup); the sites might have been occupied only once or multiple times over a certain period and involve material being dumped in the former lakes alongside the huts (Blankholm 1987, 1996; Grøn 1995).

Faunal remains consist of the “big five” land mammals of postglacial Europe, namely, red deer, elk (or moose), roe deer, aurochs, and wild boar. In addition, many fish bones, mainly of pike, are found on some settlements (see the earlier description of the Mosegården III fishing area), and hazelnut shells hint at the wide range of plant foods that must have been exploited. Most of the settlements are believed to have been occupied in summer (as was the similar site of Star Carr in Britain—see Legge and Rowley-Conwy 1988). The case has been made that a minority were occupied in winter (Grøn 1987), although the faunal evidence argues against this conclusion (Rowley-Conwy 1993; Blankholm 1996). At the time of occupation the sea level was appreciably lower than it is today; it may be that some winter settlements lie below the present sea level, for Maglemosian artifacts have been found by divers at depths of 10 to 15 meters in the now submerged