The Cultural Context: What Mesolithic Communities Did

While archaeology cannot reconstruct the full cultural life of Cheddar Man’s community from the fragmentary evidence that Mesolithic sites provide, what is known about Mesolithic culture more broadly provides some sense of the world he inhabited.

Mesolithic communities across Europe were not simply surviving on the margins of existence.

They were culturally sophisticated, socially organized, and spiritually active.

The evidence for this comes from multiple sources.

The burial practices of the Mesolithic — including the unusual isolated burial of Cheddar Man — indicate that these communities had specific practices for treating the dead, practices that were differentiated from simple disposal and that probably carried spiritual or ceremonial significance.