This detailed study of the Mesolithic and Neolithic in Britain and Ireland examines evidence related to changes in social behaviour. Martin King discusses economic and subsistence data, burial practices, mobility, social order, construction, land clearance and the deposition of artefacts, interpreting this material evidence in social terms. This study concludes that the Mesolithic and Neolithic should be seen as one long-term trend where differences have previously been overplayed in an attempt to bring the Neolithic into line with a more recognisable modern world. Importantly, his approach allows for the identification of human social behaviour which may have no parallels in the modern world.