Captioned: "Fishing during the Polished Stone Epoch. There were nets with wide meshes, and also some more closely netted. These nets were held suspended in the water by means of floats, made not of cork, but of the thick bark of the pine tree, and were held down to the bottom of the water by stone weights." The Neolithic Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 10,200 BC and ending between 4,500 and 2,000 BC. What was also once called the polished Stone age was a period characterized by beautiful weapons and instruments made of flint and other kinds of stone. Caption excerpted from "Primitive Man" by Louis Figuier, 1871.