Research: Mesolithic Era

During my last blog post, I examined the paleolithic era, which will be the inspiration for one of my lamps. At the end of the blog post, I summed up different key points from the research that I can use as inspiration. In this blog post, I will be doing the same.

I will study the Mesolithic era, which will be the inspiration for my second lamp design:

The Mesolithic era existed between the paleolithic and the neolithic era. It has greek origins as it comes from 'Meso' which means 'middle' and lithic which means 'stone', thus making this era the Middle stone age. 

During this era, people used to purely hunt and gather for survival. However, people started being interested in agriculture. Even though the agriculture and domestication of plants and animals started in the Neolithic era. This era still included intense hunting of animals.

'The type of tool used is a distinguishing factor among these cultures. Mesolithic tools were generally composite devices manufactured with small chipped stone tools called microliths and retouched bladelets. The Paleolithic utilized more primitive stone treatments, and the Neolithic mainly used polished rather than chipped stone tools.' (lumen learning, n.d.)

Backed edge bladelet: Mesolithic tools were generally composite devices manufactured with small chipped small stone tools called microliths and retouched bladelets.

During this period, climate change started occurring, which is reflected in the art produced by the people. The climate was warmer, they started consuming plants and the population increased, which helped with the transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic era. However, Mesolithic people were still forced to travel from place to place to find food, without it always being available.

The art in the Mesolithic era consisted of small painted figures of humans and animals which seem to be more advanced than the paleolithic era. Unlike the paleolithic era, where animals were the most seen figure in art, during this era, the human figure was the most popular one. Some scenes depicted animals and then humans running towards them. This is perhaps a sign of communication which shows that the people were hunters. 

The Man of Bicorp: The Man of Bicorp holding onto lianas to gather honey from a beehive as depicted on an 8000-year-old cave painting near Valencia, Spain.

However, there were not only hunting scenes depicted. There were also many dancing scenes shown. 
'The painting known as The Dancers of Cogul is a good example of the depiction of movement in static art. In this scene, nine women are depicted, something new in art of this region, some painted in black and others in red. They are shown dancing around a male figure with abnormally large phallus, a figure that was rare if not absent in Paleolithic art. Along with humans, several animals, including a dead deer or buck impaled by an arrow or atlatl, are depicted.' (lumen learning, n.d.)

Dance of the Cogul: El Cogul, Catalonia, Spain.

Mesolithic art was similar to upper Paleolithic art. The main elements which dominated this art were animal and people images carved in rocks.

Conclusions:

This was the second research into the Stone era. I really like looking into these eras as it expands my knowledge and helps me educate myself. I will try to form links to potential lamps without making it very similar to the paleolithic era. I have to find new links in order for the lamps to be different. 

Links to my own design:

1. I can closely look into the chipped tools.
2. Take inspiration from their cave paintings. Body figure over animals.

3. The dancing scenes shown.

I could not find a lot of brief information about this era, however, I will research it in more depth in the future. This is a good start for my initial ideas

References:

Lumen learning (n.d.) The mesolithic period. Available at: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/the-mesolithic-period/  [Accessed: 03/05/21]

Alen, S. (2015). Mesolithic social life and art. Available at: https://www.shorthistory.org/prehistory/mesolithic-social-life-and-art/  [Accessed: 03/05/21]