Neolithic refers to a type of economic and technological adapation based on the production of food from domesticated plants and animals.
Mesolithic in a broad sense can refer to economic and technological adaptations based on systematic (and often intensive) exploitation of fish, mollusks, seeds, nuts, and a broad spectrum of less improtant other plants and animals. Boiling and storage technologies are also usually part of this adaptation.
Complex hunter-gathers embody the first expression of significant social and economic inequality in the archaeological and cultural record. They exhibit the first widespread social and economic competitive behavior, the first significant private ownership of resources, and the first occurence of large, relatively permanent settlements. Simple hunter-gathers have none done of these characteristics.引自 Trend In Cultural Evolution
Complex......generally referring to aspects of these cultures that have the greatest effect on the material, or archaeological, remains left by societies. These aspects include social and economic inequalities (leading to the development of prestige items), centralization of political power (leading eventually to the construction of monumental buildings), and increased economic and political control (leading to larger, dominant settlements). Where resources support complex societies, the characteristics just mentioned usually give complex groups considerable advantages over simpler groups, especially in situations of competition and conflict. For all these advantages, complex societies also create less desirable outcomes, such as armed conflict and the impoverishment or disenfranchisment of some groups of people within their own communities. These features are much less developed among egalitarian hunter-gatherers but they characterize all complex societies, including the complex societies we live in today. 引自 Trends In Cultural Evolution
