In Search of the Missing Stone Age Tribes
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HUMAN adaptability was really put to the test during the last major episode of global warming. It was the Mesolithic era, or Middle Stone Age, and Europe was inhabited throughout, yet evidence of the people who lived there is thin on the ground, and nowhere more so than in what is now Britain. Just a single burial site, containing two dozen bodies, has been found there from the period that began around 15,000 years ago and lasted nearly 10,000 years - five times as long the period that separates us from the birth of Christ.
It is one of the enduring mysteries of archaeology. Without graves, archaeologists can say very little about how these people confronted some of the most taxing environmental changes in history, which saw them cut off from mainland Europe by rising sea levels. Burials would provide clues about what they were eating, how their diets changed as the climate warmed, what diseases beset them and whether desperation led to violence - as well as shedding light on their cultural practices and spiritual beliefs.
So where are the missing graves? The mystery has deepened over the past two decades as Mesolithic cemeteries have turned up in the rest of Europe, revealing a breathtaking variety and complexity in burial practices. One theory is that, cut adrift from mainland Europe, the people living in what is now Britain developed different burial practices from their continental counterparts. Another is that archaeologists have been looking in the wrong places.
Now there are indications that both theories may be correct. What's more, a new map showing details of a forgotten region of Mesolithic Europe may finally allow archaeologists to test their ideas about how these people lived and died.
Whole article found here....
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...html?full=true
