1. Transitions

Coordinated by Elisabetta Starnini and Nicolas Valdeyron

Transitions? We talk about transitions every time we identify archaeological evidence that seems to interrupt a gradual cultural evolution process. Relevant examples are the transitions between the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, First (or Early) and Second (or Late) Mesolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, and so on. But, are we sure that the term transition is the most appropriate for all of these instances? In fact, a true transition is a long and gradual process, as observed for example in the Near East with the development of the PPN. Many of the changes that occurred in Europe at the beginning of the Holocene happened quite rapidly. Are we sure the word replacement would not be more fitting? Actually, the changes we observe from the perspective of material culture could have occurred with very different modalities and even differ consistently from one territory to another.
This session welcomes contributions focused on relevant changes involving the Mesolithic period. In particular, we invite contributions presenting new data on “transitional periods” involving Mesolithic hunter-gatherer-fisher societies at different territorial scales, from regional trends to specific case studies. At the same time, we welcome synthesis works based on new analytical studies carried out by applying traditional as well as new methodologies, contributing to the current debate on the origin and development of the Mesolithic period by offering new interpretative perspectives.

2. Colonisation

Coordinated by Astrid J. Nyland and Graeme Warren

This session welcomes contributions that explore themes related to colonisation processes in the Mesolithic and Late Palaeolithic. This can involve several aspects and situations. Firstly, ‘pioneer’ colonisation of previously uninhabited regions or specific areas, including mountainous/alpine regions, or islands or archipelagic landscapes. This may sometimes mean re-colonisation of areas deserted for differing periods of time. In such context, the potential ‘memory’ of these earlier landscapes is an under-explored topic. Another related process involved migrating people entering (to them) new lands, but where people already lived. How are such meetings visible in the archaeological material and how does considering these meetings as a colonisation process help us understand them?
Colonisation processes need to be engaged with in different ways via the application of different methods, explanation models, and theoretical perspectives. Here are some potential questions to address:
● Is ‘colonisation’ an appropriate term to use to describe the processes by which people moved into new landscapes in European prehistory?
● How do various types of ‘mobility’ fit with the concept of ‘colonisation’?
● What caused people to move to new lands?
● Can we identify ‘memory’ of previously occupied landscapes?
● Which climatic or environmental conditions push people out or make areas attractive? Are there limits to ecological conditions to where people choose to settle?
● Can we improve the chronological resolution of colonisation processes?
● How did people familiarise themselves with new territories, resources, and people?
● How are relations to new or old lands and people maintained or expressed?
● How can we differentiate between permanent moves into new land and seasonal exploitation of marginal landscapes?
● How do new sources of evidence, such as genetic data, change our understanding of colonisation processes and how do we best combine data of different kinds?

3. Regional identities

Coordinated by Dmytro Kiosak and Thomas Perrin

Archaeologists have long sought to grasp regional identities of the past through the concept of archaeological culture and a related typo-chronological approach. In that sense, an archaeological culture cannot of course reflect a prehistoric ethnic reality, but serves as a flexible categorization, suggesting both persistence over time and the geographical consistency of comparable artifacts within the archaeological sites. To truly grasp prehistoric realities, however, one must look beyond these classifications and grasp the true duration and spatial dimension of these societies. By adopting this approach, these categorical units can acquire tangible historical significance: examining both advances and regressions allows a deeper understanding of human influence and action.
Classical archaeological culture is only one type of spatial and temporal distribution of material culture variability. Only by comparing the spatial and temporal distribution of different categories of artefacts can we propose the identification of prehistoric cultures. At different scales and using different approaches, regional facies or larger techno-complexes can also be identified. Do pattern of variability of lithics, ceramics, bone items, decorations coincide in time and space? Often they do not. Accordingly, we are interested in new approaches to understanding the nature of multicriteria variability: networks, spatial regression models, fuzzy sets approaches and agent-based modelling. These cases of inconsistency between the distributions of different categories of material culture have the greatest heuristic potential for understanding the nature of past identities.
Moreover, radiocarbon dating has given us a powerful new tool for testing typochronologies - and quite often, typochronologies fail this test. So, the question is why? Why did certain types of things that should have existed for a limited period of time actually exist for longer? Why did types that should have outlived each other actually coexist? What are the social mechanisms of innovation behind these cases?

4. People and their environment

Coordinated by Auréade Henry and Harry K. Robson

The nature of the relationships hunter-gatherer-fisher societies had with their natural environment is key to understanding their “being-in-the-world”. Indeed, while organic remains reflect the palaeoenvironment, they also offer a unique insight into daily subsistence strategies, settlement patterns, mobility, techniques, health, worldviews and cultural traditions.
Throughout the Mesolithic, the use of plants and animals has some uniformity and great heterogeneity over time and space, reflecting the diversity of environmental and socio-economic interactions at play. Although central, the place of organics within Mesolithic societies remains difficult to grasp due to taphonomic issues but also because historically, most remains of organic origin have received less attention than stone (and bone) artefacts that have been used as “diagnostic fossils” to define Mesolithic techno-cultural complexes.
Over the past decades, a range of techniques have developed, allowing us to identify “invisible” or undeterminable remains (e.g., through proteomics, microscopic or organic residue analyses), interpret incremental patterns (e.g., cementochronology), and traces (e.g., traceology on inorganic and organic remains, dental use-wear). These advances have broadened our interdisciplinary research frameworks and have significantly increased the body of knowledge about Mesolithic environments, used taxa and palaeoethnoecological practices.
This session deals with the interactions of Mesolithic humans with their biological environment, focusing on how specific components of this environment were acquired, prepared/transformed, used and/or discarded, and what these actions may have implied in societal terms (economy, social organisation, territories, seasonality, diet, etc.) We welcome contributions dealing with palaeoenvironmental, palaeoclimatic and/or palaeoeconomic reconstructions based on plant, animal, fungal or bacterial remains. Both case studies and broader syntheses will be accepted. While a trans- or interdisciplinary focus is strongly encouraged, all forms of methodological approaches are appreciated – from comparative anatomical methods, such as zooarchaeology or archaeobotany, to biomolecular techniques, including isotopic analyses, genomics and proteomics. Experimental and/or ethnoarchaeological approaches investigating the taphonomy and uses of organic materials are also welcomed.

5. People and places

Coordinated by Philippe Crombé and Caroline Posch

Prehistoric as well as modern humans form an integral part of the landscapes which they inhabit. Likewise, Mesolithic people lived and moved within their environment; they established, and abandoned campsites – often repeatedly in the same location; they hunted and exploited the faunal, botanical, and geological resources available to them; and when moving on to other regions, they took objects along with them, sometimes over hundreds of kilometres. However, as humans are space-acquiring beings with a tendency towards territoriality, movement and contact between regions and groups might not always have been unhampered but possibly at times restricted to a lesser or larger extent.
But how can questions regarding Mesolithic territoriality and perceptions of space be tackled? And how is the interaction of people with their local environment as well as the interconnectedness with other regions and groups on a supra-regional scale visible in the archaeological record of Mesolithic sites?
Within this session, we invite contributions which deal with the reconstruction of Mesolithic landscape usage. We invite theoretical and practical papers dealing with e.g. the detection of sites in the landscape (e.g., survey, remote sensing, predictive modelling, geophysical survey); reconstructions of supra-regional contacts and territoriality (e.g., GIS-modelling, typological/taxonomic analysis, network analysis); raw material management with special focus on lithic resources (e.g., sourcing and regional to supra-regional distribution); analysis of settlement systems (e.g. site function, site location, persistent places / ancestral places).

6. Settlements and dwellings

Coordinated by Daniel Groß and Nicky Milner

This session delves into the details of Mesolithic settlement patterns and dwellings through intrasite analysis. Recent archaeological excavations and methodological advancements have broadened our understanding on Mesolithic dwellings, prompting a reevaluation of traditional interpretations and unveiling fresh insights into prehistoric lifeways. Increasingly, evidence is contesting the model of fully mobile lifestyles and seasonal occupation patterns, and thus presents unique challenges and opportunities for understanding settlement organisation at a micro-scale level.
Key areas of discussion include the latest developments in the field, such as high-resolution excavation techniques, advanced dating methods, and innovative scientific and analytical approaches. By zooming in on individual settlement sites, we aim to unravel the complexities of Mesolithic settlements and dwelling structures, including their architectural features, spatial organisation, and functional aspects. Moreover, we will critically examine the sources of evidence, considering the reliability and interpretative implications of archaeological data, stratigraphic sequences, and environmental proxies.
Through a synthesis of interdisciplinary perspectives and case studies from diverse geographic regions, this session seeks to address fundamental questions regarding Mesolithic settlement patterns and the socio-economic dynamics that were the foundation of these communities. We want to discuss the intertwinement of artefacts, constructions, elusive features and activities and also welcome theoretical and methodological studies that advance our knowledge of Mesolithic lifeways and prehistoric settlement organisation on an intrasite level.

7. Technology

Coordinated by Ana Cristina Araújo and Éva David

This session focuses on one of the most important aspects of Mesolithic societies: their knowledge and their ways of converting raw materials into objects. Technology is a form of cultural expression that reveals different traditions, peoples, landscapes, and modes of production and operation, contributing to the knowledge of economic, social and symbolic aspects of humanity. Stone, bone, antler and shell, among other materials that have survived time and erosion, have been processed and used by groups for food, shelter, warmth and comfort, adornment, clothing, and so on. In this session we would like to bring emphasis on the enormous richness and diversity of technological solutions implemented by Mesolithic groups across time and space. We will explore the potential of new instrumentation (e.g. XRF, FTIR, 3D digital microscopy), approaches (e.g. artificial intelligence) and other analytical infrastructures and statistical tools for the study of Mesolithic technologies. Particular attention will be paid to current advances in the study of: (i) manufacturing processes; (ii) raw material procurement and circulation; (iii) function and use of objects; (iv) recognition of fashions and styles; and (v) role of experimentation. We would like to approach these subjects in a relational way, drawing on variables of past human behaviour that triggered differences in technical choices over various chronological sequences and/or geographic contexts.

8. Mobility and communication

Coordinated by Dorothée Drucker and María Natividad Fuertes-Prieto

Mobility and communication patterns during the Mesolithic are recurrent topics of study that capture subsistence movements, territorial exploitation, and the exchange of ideas and cultural materials among Early Holocene hunter-gatherer-fishers. From the origin of raw material and prey to debitage techniques, ornamental distributions, and group sharing, different lenses of analysis are required to build models of mobility, territoriality, and social networks. By mobility, we refer not only to movements of artefacts but also to individuals or groups who may be motivated by economic and/or social factors. With communication, we seek to provide insights into the social relationship driving raw material and worked object exchanges, economic and cultural practices, and genetic interactions. Our goal is to decipher strategies of occupation, as well as links among different cultural groups and territories. Among other topics, we would examine to what extent patterns of mobility and communications may have been resilient to short- and long-term climatic changes (e.g. the 8.2 ka event).
Combining approaches as diverse as lithic raw material provenance, the management of chaînes opératoires, the origin and making of ornaments, subsistence seasonality, and genetic relationships will allow us to gain new and diverse perspectives on movements and exchanges. We invite submissions from researchers with any focus, including lithic/organic raw material, lithic/bone industry, ornaments, zooarchaeology, proteomics, stable isotopes, and paleogenetics. Thematic studies focusing on specific geographical regions or diachronic perspectives are especially welcome. Studies based primarily on one line of evidence should be contextualised in a large chronological and/or temporal context. In bringing together different methods and materials, we aim to gain novel perspectives on mobility and communications during the different phases of the Mesolithic and the transitions with the Final Paleolithic and Early Neolithic.

9. Understanding the social context

Coordinated by Emanuela Cristiani and Oreto García Puchol

Approaching Mesolithic social life is fundamental for understanding social relationships among the last hunter-gatherer societies, encompassing various scales from local, regional and interregional connections. Research has focused on explaining the degree of complexity revealed by funerary practices, symbolic actions, hunter-gatherer and fishing strategies, storage practices, technological development, cultural transmission processes, mobility patterns and emerging sedentarisation processes and their implications in changing social strategies.
This session invites papers that aim to integrate data regarding the social organization of Mesolithic communities. We welcome different scientific approaches, including explanations covering different research lines from cultural, geospatial, and biological data. We encourage researchers to present works that test and describe hypotheses about social relationships across different spatial and temporal scales in Mesolithic societies. These works should focus on local settlements and regional analysis involving bioarchaeological data (anthropological and biomolecular analysis for approaching health, diet and kindship patterns) and cultural and contextual information (for addressing social patterns from material cultural records). We are particularly interested in works based on recent approaches to cutting-edge scientific developments, including ancient DNA, isotopic results, histological data, use-wear and residues analysis, dental calculus evidence, cultural patterns, and social network analysis.

10. Rites and Symbols

Coordinated by Liv Nilsson Stutz and Tomasz Płonka

Rituals and symbols were an important part of life in Mesolithic societies. In this session, we invite papers that discuss various aspects of the symbolic culture and ritual practice among hunter-gatherer-fishers from the Early and Middle Holocene, including portable and rock art, graves and various manipulations of the human body, different types of ornaments and their use, ways of preparing and using pigments, and other artefacts and contexts related to the world of rituals and symbols of Stone Age foragers.
How can we identify ritual practice and symbols in the archaeological record from this period? How did these ritual practices and symbolic artefacts function? What role did they play in the life of hunter-gatherer-fisher groups, and how did they function in the social space? Who made symbolic artefacts and who used them? How were the media and raw material for symbolic communication selected and handled? What can the material culture record tell us about hunter-gatherer-fisher cosmologies?
One important focus for the session is the evidence of ritual practices and symbolic communication revealed through detailed contextual analysis. Another significant area is the theoretical approaches available to us as we interpret it. We welcome papers addressing both theoretical aspects of research on rituals and symbols within broader hunter-gatherer-fisher cosmology, and specific and detailed case studies.

11. Bioarchaeological approaches

Coordinated by Dušan Borić and Julien Riel Salvatore

Over the past several decades, there have been major methodological advances in bioarchaeology, encompassing a wide range of scientific approaches to shed light on the diversity of human lives in the Mesolithic. Applied primarily to human and animal bone samples, these include biomolecular approaches and isotope analyses (notably nitrogen, carbon, sulfur, oxygen and strontium) to reconstruct diet, provenance/mobility, and/or seasonality. In addition, bone chemistry is an integral part of accelerated mass spectrometry (AMS) applied to short-lived organisms and are critical in establishing robust and precise chronologies. Likewise, the fast-growing field of past population genetics has also made remarkable progress over the past decade, as has proteomic research, including methods such as collagen finger-printing (e.g., Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry, or ZooMS) which allow the identification of highly fragmented animal remains to the genus level. On the other hand, more traditional approaches such as morphometrics and histology have also developed substantially in analytical sophistication, contributing novel insights into Mesolithic human life histories. In this session, we invite contributors to present diverse studies within the wider field of bioarchaeology through both novel analytical approaches and state-of-the-art methodologies applied to Mesolithic assemblages.

12. Current research and Mesolithic narratives

Coordinated by Colas Guéret and Adriana Soto Sebastián

Beyond their definition of hunter-gatherer-fisher societies, Mesolithic communities constituted diverse and complex realities. The research carried out on those populations reveals: the development and adoption of different strategies of exploitation and relationship with the environment, along with different ways of mobility and territoriality; the exploration of new spaces; the dynamism of their contact and exchange networks; the construction of different identities; their technological, artistic and symbolic practices; and their social and spatial organisation, among many other issues. These heterogeneous and dynamic realities can only be tackled successfully from a plurality of perspectives, approaches, methodologies, and interpretations.
This session aims to include all those proposals that do not fit in the topics addressed in the other sessions, but which reflect the diversity of narratives and perspectives that encompass Mesolithic research. In this sense, the following issues will be welcomed: presentations of projects or new lines of research, with innovative thematic, methodological, and/or theoretical approaches; results of fieldwork and discoveries; analysis of materials and archaeological contexts; collaborative projects (collaborative databases, networks, etc.); and dissemination and social valorisation activities about Mesolithic research, as well as its impact on current societies. In short, all those efforts that constitute and build from plural and diverse perspectives our knowledge about Mesolithic societies.