What is Mesolithic age?

"Mesolithic" means "Middle Stone Age." However, the prefix "meso-" in the Word can mean "between," and this has been taken some scientists to refer to cultures in between a hunter-gathering mode and an agricultural mode. The Mesolithic era begins at the end of the Pleistocene epoch and the start of the Holocene, the most recent geologic epoch.

The Mesolithic era was an unusual transition time between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic. Because the period was relatively short, Mesolithic artifacts are relatively hard to come by, consisting mainly of middens, or scrap-heaps. In coastal areas around the world, there are large shell middens dating to the Mesolithic era. In British Columbia, there is a midden several meters in depth which has been around for at least 10,000 years.