also contain many fish and seals, but there is a much larger proportion of land mammals (H. Olsen 1976). Whether Skipshelleren was utilized by groups from the outer coast on a seasonal basis remains unclear. Small sites in the Hardanger massif in the interior were probably seasonal reindeer-hunting stands (Bang-Andersen 1996).

Arctic Norway also presents a picture of maritime adaptations. Substantial house structures are known (Engelstad 1989). The best-surveyed area is Varanger Fiord, in the most northeastern part of the country. Substantial faunal remains have been recovered from some settlements there. Earlier models of long-range mobility based on recent ethnography have given way to models of restricted movement or sedentism based on the archaeological material: individual middens on the same site may indicate different seasons, but in all, they suggest year-round occupation (Renouf 1988, 1989).

Eastern Europe

The Mesolithic of eastern Europe is little known in the west, although recent years have seen an upsurge in contacts between east and west, and the coming years will surely see this increase still further. The best review of the whole region is Dolukhanov (1979). Various areas are of major interest.

The northeast Baltic contains many large settlements with excellent organic preservation. Archaeologists with command of the relevant languages have provided information about these (e.g., Zvelebil 1979), and some information about individual settlements, such as Sventoji in Lithuania (Rimantiené 1992), is becoming available. Claims are made for a small number of domestic cattle and pigs in some sites (see Dolukhanov 1979), but detailed zooarchaeological data are not available.

The Iron Gates Gorge, containing the Danube, separates romania from the former Yugoslavia. The gorge contains a number of major Mesolithic sites. The most famous is lepinski vir, which has substantial house remains and monumental sculptures (Sjrejovic 1972), but other sites are also substantial (see, e.g., Prinz 1987; Voytek and Tringham 1989). Fish, mainly catfish and members of the carp family, apparently were a very important resource, accounting for over half the bones recovered from Lepinski Vir (Bökönyi 1970), Padina III (Clason 1980), and Icoana (Bolomey 1973). Faunal reports all conclude that these three settlements were occupied all year.

Continuity from the Later Upper Paleolithic

Historically, the Mesolithic has been described as a separate entity. However, much new work is now being done to bridge the gap between the Upper Paleolithic and the Mesolithic, and not surprisingly, there is substantial continuity. The two periods are now being studied largely by the same researchers, whereas in earlier years the division between Pleistocene and Holocene also formed a research division. This is particularly the case in the North European Plain, where human occupation ceased during the maximum extent of the last glacial period: the later Upper Paleolithic reoccupation is treated together with the Mesolithic as a single unit of study, albeit with recognition of rapid change through time. This renders irrelevant any question of whether we should actually call the postglacial period “Mesolithic” or “Epipaleolithic.”

Climatic warming at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary appears to have been extremely rapid. As a result, it took some centuries for plant communities to begin to adjust. There is a substantial similarity between the flint technology of this period and the immediately preceding later Upper Paleolithic, both on the mainland (Gob 1991) and in Britain (Barton 1991). Similarity in bone and antler artifacts is also attested (Smith and Bonsall 1991). One interesting recent development is the accelerator dating of a point recovered from the bed of the North Sea at a depth of 39 meters; the date is 11,740±150 b.p. (OxA 1950), which places the point firmly in the later Upper Paleolithic and emphasizes the large areas that have been submerged since the last glacial.

It was mentioned earlier that microliths may reflect a less specialized technology, as would be expected when climatic amelioration takes place. Can microlithization therefore be considered