“Lost in Transition” - Tracing human responses to climatic and environmental change in the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in north-western Europe

This thesis presents a diachronic, cross-cultural comparative study of the five archaeological groups at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in northwestern Europe, namely Late Federmesser, Ahrensburgian, Epi-Ahrensburgian, Long Blade and Early Mesolithic assemblages. This interface is characterised by intensive climatic warming which transformed vegetation and fauna. However, to date there is no consensus on the cultural developments at this interface.

This thesis offers a ‘whole assemblage’ approach taking into account lithic assemblages, faunal assemblages, settlement patterns and environmental data, thereby departing from traditional classification systems which tend to focus on one classificatory element. The results suggest that the main change during this interface is a shift from highly mobile hunter-gatherer groups during the Lateglacial to more sedentary groups in the Early Mesolithic. However, the complex process of the “Mesolithisation” of northwestern Europe lasted several centuries which indicates that the broad synonymous use of the climatic Pleistocene-Holocene transition with the cultural Palaeolithic-Mesolithic transition should be avoided.