The Mesolithic has often been treated as a period without history, where the only significant change is from an early Mesolithic characterised by highly mobile big game hunters to more sedentary marine-focused late Mesolithic. This presentation presents the results of a new British Academy funded project which has aimed, by contrast. to understand temporal change over this period on a centennial scale and produce an historical narrative of the Mesolithic inhabitation of Britain.

Welcome to our new series of hybrid Day Schools. The theme examines the discipline of prehistory, from how it has been studied in the past to how we may approach the subject in the future. Our first event will look at the past, then in 2024 we move onto the present and in 2025 we look to the future.

The earliest evidence for horse husbandry comes from the Eneolithic period in Central Asia some 5,500 years ago, yet the widespread use horses for equestrianism across Eurasia spreads rapidly only after 4,000 BP, in the middle Bronze Age. This talk outlines the evidence for the archaeological and palaeogenomic sequence in Central Asia and the Pontic-Caspian steppe leading up to this horizon.