DOCTOR Richard Carter, of the University of Sussex, described the results of his researches into ‘Mesolithic Settlement and Subsistence in Southern Britain’ at the monthly meeting of the society held on Thursday, November 12.

The Mesolithic (or Middle Stone Age) period of the remote past lasted some 5,000 years from the beginning of the retreat of the ice sheets in the northern hemisphere around 11,500 BC to about 6,000 years ago when farming began in the Neolithic (or New Stone Age) period.

Dr Carter explained that evidence in Britain is fairly sparse due to environmental change following the rise in sea levels that separated Britain and Ireland from the European Continent some 8,500 years ago.

In Scandinavia, where a different geological structure prevails, and where there was an increase in land area caused by the lifting of glacier weight, many more artefacts have been recovered for further study.

However, some areas, notably the Wealden greensand of West Sussex which extends into Hampshire and at Star Carr in Yorkshire, have been found to be the location of campsites and rock shelters which have produced a range of flint tools some of which were available for members to inspect at the close of the lecture.

Perhaps the most interesting of Dr Carter’s conclusions related to the rate of change from hunter/gatherer societies to settlement in farming communities when he pointed out that there is no evidence for a sharp break from Mesolithic to Neolithic, and therefore it seems very probable that permanent settlement resulted from the interaction of population growth and environmental influences with different social groupings adapting to the new ways at different times.

October saw civic events at Church Cottage with the successful launching of the society’s latest publication ‘Happy Christmas Basingstoke’ in the presence of the Mayor of Basingstoke and Deane and the official commencement of the Hampshire Victoria County History Project attended by the Lord Lieutenant of the county.

The society will hold its Christmas Social Evening on December 10. The next lecture will take place on January 14, at 7.30pm at Church Cottage, when Professor Barbara Yorke will make ‘Anglo-Saxon Northumberland’ the subject of her presentation.