Mesolithic

Montes, panoramic view of the Oliena Supramonte. Photo by Antonello Chiaramida, 2008, from Sardegna DigitalLibrary

The term Mesolithic is composed of the Greek words “mesos”, in the middle, and “lithos”, stone, and designates the intermediate Stone Age between the Old and the New.
The scientific acquisition of the existence of archaeological evidence that can be interpreted as “intermediate” between those of the Paleolithic complexes and those of the subsequent Neolithic is the result of archaeological research carried out during the 20th century.
Currently, the term “Mesolithic” designates the period (which lasted several thousand years) in which the process of adaptation of the last groups of hunter-gatherers to the environmental changes that occurred starting about 10,000 years ago took place.
Some scholars prefer to divide this period into two phases and use two terms accordingly. The term “Epipalaeolithic” would designate an older phase, in greater continuity with the Upper Paleolithic, while the term “Mesolithic” would refer to a later chronological phase, in which the signs of the process of “Neolithization”, that is, of the process of transition to economic and social systems based on agriculture and livestock, appear more evident.
As far as Sardinia is concerned, at the current state of knowledge, archaeological evidence relating to this chronological phase does not seem to be detectable.
The only exception could be represented by at least part of the discoveries that occurred during scientific excavations in the Corbeddu cave in Oliena, whose dating ranges from 20,000 to 6,000 years BC, thus falling back to both the Upper Paleolithic and the Mesolithic.