The present volume tries to evaluate the cultural and environmental factors, which necessitated a transition from hunting-gathering to food-producing stage; and the material culture, technology, subsistence, art, religious beliefs, disposal of the dead, biological composition, dietary habits, pathology and social organization of the then inhabitants, drawing data from the excavated finds, ethnography and author’s own understanding of this phase for the last five decades.\n\n\nEvidence for the microlithic tradition in India, which now has a duration of over forty millennia, is much richer than for the preceding Palaeolithic period which lasted nearly from 1.0 to 1.5 million years. In the Mesolithic period, microlithic and composite tools took the centre stage resulting in an improved economy and sedentary lifestyle and laying the foundation for a settled agricultural life. The book discusses the origin and evolution of the Mesolithic culture with its chronological details.