Mesolithic age

The Mesolithic (Greek: mesos "middle", lithos stone) or "Middle Stone Age" was a period in the development of human technology in between the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age and the Neolithic or New Stone Age, in which farming appeared. The term was introduced by John Lubbock in his work Pre-historic Times, published in 1865. The term was, however, not much used until V. Gordon Childe popularized it in his book The Dawn of Europe (1947). The start and end dates of the Mesolithic vary by geographical region. In some areas, such as the Near East, farming was already in use by the end of the Pleistocene.