Mesolithic-Neolithic transitions in Britain: from essence to inhabitation

Abstract

This chapter argues that the critical changes that we can identify across the so-called ‘Mesolithic–Neolithic transition’ are not limited to the presence or absence of particular resources or artefact types, or even their contribution to the overall diet of a community. Instead, we should address the way that people inhabit a landscape, and the extent to which new material and symbolic media transformed their existence, at the level of everyday tasks, routine movements, and habitual activities. Importantly, different facets of this transformation might not all have proceeded at the same rate, and this suggests that the phenomenon is best investigated at the regional scale.