The Mesolithic Culture exhibited a wide variety of subsistence patterns, including hunting and gathering, fishing, and, at least for some part of the period, some hunting and small-scale agriculture.
From the Palaeolithic age to Mesolithic age, there seems to have been a shift from big animal hunting to small animal hunting and fishing. The early Mesolithic sites have yielded the faunal remains of cattle, sheep, goat, buffalo, pig, dog, boar, bison, elephant, jackal, wolf, chinkara, fish and many others.
The domestication of sheep and goats is thought to have begun in Mesolithic period. The diet of the people included both meat and vegetal food.
Besides hunting and fishing, the Mesolithic people also collected wild roots, tubers, fruits, honey, etc., and these were important elements in the overall dietary pattern.
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People
It may be inferred from numerous examples that hunting cultures frequently co-existed and interacted with agricultural and pastoral communities. Mesolithic people started to bury their dead. Probably, men started to make clay pottery in the late-Mesolithic period.
Many of the caves and rock shelters of Central India contain rock paintings. Sites like Bhimbetka, Adamgarh, Pratapgarh and Mirza pur are rich in Mesolithic art and paintings.
The paintings and engravings depict human activities like hunting, food-gathering, fishing, child rearing and burial ceremony.
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The latter seem to indicate that during the Mesolithic period, social organization had become more stable than in Palaeolithic times. There are indications that some caves were used for religious activities.