There is evidence of human habitation of the area since the Mesolithic period, but the first written record of Auchencairn occurs from 1305 in a charter of Edward I in which 'Aghencarne' is listed among lands belonging to Dundrennan Abbey.
The identical ancestors point for Homo sapiens has been estimated to between 15,000 and 5,000 years ago, with an estimate of the human MRCA living about 2,000 to 5,000 years ago, that is, estimating the IAP to be about three times as distant as the MRCA.
Leonid Zaliznyak, a Ukrainian archeologist with specialization in Mesolithic
Prehistoric man of the Mesolithic era (dating from 5000-7000 years ago) lived by the shore of eastern Sumatra and mollusks were the easiest foodstuff that could be found.
In the early Neolithic (sometimes called the Mesolithic) period, evidence of significant shifts in tool making, settlement patterns, and subsistence living including nascent domestication of both plants and animals, which comes from such important Kurdish sites as Asiab (Asíyaw), Guran, Ganj-e Dareh (Genjí Dara), and Ali Khosh (Elí xosh).
Lentils were unearthed in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic layers of Franchthi Cave in Greece (9,500 to 13,000 years ago), in the end-Mesolithic at Mureybet and Tell Abu Hureyra in Syria, and sites dating to 8000 BC in the area of Jericho.
Mount Sandel Mesolithic site, excavated mesolithic huts in Coleraine, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland
The oldest known human settlement on the southern part of Oland is slightly to the north at Alby dating to the mesolithic era showing the presence of hunter-gatherers.
He has carried out excavations on early Mesolithic sites at Oronsay in the Inner Hebrides in Scotland and published the results from work at Star Carr in North Yorkshire.
Domestication of plants and animals with early stages in the Old World (Afro-Eurasia) Mesolithic and New World (American continent) Archaic periods led to significant changes and reliance on agriculture in the Old World Neolithic and New World Formative stage.
There has been much debate over the dating of Levantine paintings, and whether they belong to the Mesolithic, the end of the Paleolithic, or the Neolithic; they clearly represent a very different style from the much more famous Art of the Upper Paleolithic in caves on either side of the Pyrenees, but yet may well show continuity with it.
From 1978–79 he spent a year as an exchange student at Edinburgh University, Scotland, where he participated in his first field trips, excavating Mesolithic and Neolithic bog sites in Offaly and Mayo counties, Ireland, and at a Bronze Age henge near Strathallan, Scotland.
On the southern edge of the vale lies West Heslerton, where recent excavation has revealed continuous habitation since the Late Mesolithic Age, about 5000 BC.
Further work in 2010 uncovered a 12cm layer of mesolithic material including 10,000 pieces of struck flint and over 300 pieces of animal bone, a find described by Professor Tim Darvill as "the most important discovery at Stonehenge in many years."