Palaeolithic And Mesolithic Cultures

The various facets of the societyand culture of the prehistoric communities in any part of the world at any period of time can be best understood against the background of the fundamental principles of prehistoric anthropology besides ably supplementing the same by the data generated from the study of the living communities of the more or less similar subsistence patterns as those of ancient communities. These principles range from the environment, methods of dating, tool typo-technology to methods of study with the help of which the frameworks for prehistoric archaeology can be worked out for convenience and under these divisions or sub-divisions the different types of evidence can be put. In this book the periods of palaeolithic and mesolithic culturesand their sub-divisions have been examined with reference to Europe, India and Africa in the Old World. The first chapter on the frameworks for prehistoric archaeology examines the conceptual models and the frameworks. The second chapter on the palaeolithic cultures of Europe covers the lower, middle and upper palaeolithic cultures and their different traditions with the help of stratigraphical, archaeological, palaeontological and other types of evidence. The third chapter is exclusively devoted to palaeolithic art in Europe with reference to the forms of art, and its underlying motives to understand its place in the life of the people. The fourth chapter on mesolithic cultures of Europe deals with the Northern and Western parts of Europe. In the fifth and sixth chapters, the evidence from India has been discussed covering the different aspects of palaeolithic and mesolithic cultures of India. The last two chapters (seventh and eighth) have been devoted to the study of the palaeolithic and mesolithic cultures of different geographical regions of Africa, followed by the bibliography. The work has been illustrated with sixteen figures fo line drawings of different tools types ofdifferent cultural periods representing different areas of the Old World.