Late Stone Age Hunters of the British Isles

Christopher Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780415072021
• eBook ISBN: 9781134908844
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

For 7,000 years after the last ice age, the people of the British Isles subsisted by hunting wild game and gathering fruits of the forest and foreshore. Belonging to the late Upper Palaelithic and Mesolithic periods, these hunter-gatherers have hitherto been viewed mainly in terms of stone tool typologies. late Stone Age Hunters of the British Isles departs from this conventional approach, reassessing the archaeological evidence and placing it within a wider ecological and geographical context.
This well illustrated study, which includes case studies, maps and photographs, provides a balanced approach to the study of a period that demands multi-disciplinary treatment. It outlines a range of considerations that have a bearing on the study of early societies in the British Isles, and also forms a useful guide to communiites themselves as represented by known archaeological sites.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Hunters and gatherers in action
• 3 Hunters and gatherers in the archaeological record
• 4 An interpretative framework
• 5 The Lateglacial and early Postglacial environment
• 6 Case studies I: Hunters of the Lateglacial tundra
• 7 Case studies II: Hunters of the boreal forests and deciduous woodlands
• 8 Case studies III: Coastal adaptations
• 9 The Lateglacial and early Postglacial settlement of the British Isles
• Epilogue
• Appendix: Radiocarbon dates
• References
• Index