Mesolithic
In archaeology, mesolithic (Greek: μεσος, mesos "middle"; λιθος, lithos "stone") is the culture between paleolithic and neolithic. The term "Epipaleolithic" is often used for areas outside northern Europe, but was also the preferred synonym used by French archaeologists until the 1960s.
Mesolithic has different time spans in different parts of Eurasia. It was originally post-Pleistocene, pre-agricultural material in northwest Europe about 10,000 to 5,000 BC, but material from the Levant (about 20,000 to 9,500 BC) is also labelled mesolithic.
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The term "Mesolithic" is in competition with another term, "Epipaleolithic", which means the "final Upper Palaeolithic industries occurring at the end of the final glaciation which appear to merge technologically into the Mesolithic".
In the archaeology of northern Europe, for example for archaeological sites in Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, Ukraine, and Russia, the term "Mesolithic" is almost always used. In the archaeology of other areas, the term "Epipaleolithic" may be preferred by most authors, or there may be divergences between authors over which term to use or what meaning to assign to each. In the New World, neither term is used (except provisionally in the Arctic).
