A session held at the TAG conference in Cardiff in 1999 sought to steer Mesolithic debates away from traditional lithic approaches and instead considered social aspects of Mesolithic life. The seventeen papers given here, many of which are from that conference, discuss a wide range of subjects: the people behind the lithics', interaction with the landscape, with animals, food and subsistence, body ornament and burial practices, settlement, violence and death, revisiting Star Carr. Contributors are: Marek Zvelebil, Peter Jordan, Lynne Bevan, Biddy Simpson, Jenny Moore, Malcolm Lillie, Richard Chatterton, C Richards, R J Schulting, Christophe Cupillard, George Nash, I J N Thorpe, Rebekah Judeh .