The Mesolithic period covers in the region a period from 10,000 BC. to 5000 BC. , corresponding to the end of the last Ice Age and the resulting rise in water level. Steppe vegetation is replaced by a vegetation of birch and pine, and hazel, oak and elms; large mammals give way to animals of smaller size as deer or wild boar. Men abandon the hunt for the picking and the first domestication trials appear. The population is mainly coastal and larger on the south coast. The skeletons found from this period attest to an average size of 1.59 meters for men and 1.52 m for women.