ABSTRACT
It is reckoned that about 5 billion years ago our planet–as one of nine bigger ones in a remote corner of the Milky Way galaxy–came into existence, about 3 billion years ago its crust hardened, and about a billion years ago rudimentary forms of flora and fauna emerged. The human sector of Europe’s prehistory is conventionally related to the three-age system of Stone, Bronze and Iron. The Old Stone (Palaeolithic) Age refers to the enormously long period before the end of the ice ages when humans worked with chipped stone tools, while the Middle Stone (Mesolithic) Age refers to the period between 8000 and 3500 BC. The best-known archaeological site in the British Isles is located on Salisbury Plain, near the town of Amesbury, Wiltshire, in southern England.
