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From Moments to Histories: A Social Archaeology of the Mesolithic?

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Abstract

This contribution will provide a critical overview of the other papers within this special issue of Journal of World Prehistory (Elliott and Little 2018), identifying key aspects of the discussion and assessing potentials and problems in the development of Mesolithic archaeology in Britain and Ireland as a whole since 2006 (Conneller and Warren in Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New approaches, Stroud, Tempus, 2006a). Reflections will include how the contribution of very high-resolution analyses to Mesolithic archaeology has changed since 2006 and the scale of our interpretations. The review will also identify areas which appear to be falling from analytical focus, including the role of analogies in Mesolithic archaeology and the nature of power and social relationships in Mesolithic communities.

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Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Aimée Little and Ben Elliott for the invitation to write this review and their support during the drafting, including their very helpful comments on the first draft. I would like to thank all of the authors for providing drafts of their texts to help with this review. I am grateful to Chantal Conneller for collaboration on our 2006 publication and the 2014 Manchester TAG session from which this publication has developed. None of the above are responsible for any errors of understanding or judgement that I may have made.

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  1. School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Graeme Warren

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  1. Graeme Warren
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Warren, G. From Moments to Histories: A Social Archaeology of the Mesolithic?. J World Prehist 31, 421–433 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9121-3

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