Resolving the Issue of Artefact Deposition at Star Carr

Foraging Assemblages Volume 1, 2021

Large scale excavations have recommenced at the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr as part of the European Research Council-funded POSTGLACIAL project. The aims have been to uncover as large an area of waterlogged deposits as possible before the peat deteriorates any further and to investigate the dry land for further evidence of structures and habitation. The excavations in the waterlogged parts of the site have revealed an unprecedented view of several worked wooden platforms which sit on the water’s edge and span an area of over 30 metres. The peat has also produced more rare artefacts such as an engraved shale pendant, antler headdresses, and barbed points which although in a delicate condition are being examined using forensic methods, thus providing important new insights into their manufacture and function. A new programme of microwear analysis of the flint assemblage is revealing different types of craftwork. This evidence, together with an extensive dating programme and new scientific approaches, are providing important new insights into this enigmatic site

The faunal remains from the original excavations were studied by Frederic Fraser and Judith King of the then Department of Zoology, British Museum (Natural History), and the bird bones were identified by Marjorie Platt of the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh. The collection was noted as being important because it contained several animals now absent from the fauna of this country and there was enough material to give an impression of the composition of the fauna at the start of the postglacial period in Yorkshire (Clark 1954, 70).

Scottish Archaeological Journal, 2001

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License This book is available in print and as a free download from www.archaeopress.com i Although the present volume was written by the author, it also includes contributions from a significant number of other people in the form of inspiration, comments and illustrations. My interest in lithic typology began in the early 1980s, when as an unemployed librarian I went for long walks, started finding lithic artefacts, sites and assemblages, and subsequently read most of Dr Søren H. Andersen's production to identify what I had found. When I enrolled at the Prehistoric Institute, Aarhus University, Denmark, in the mid-1980s, Søren H. Andersen became my teacher in Palaeolithic/Mesolithic Studies, and I learnt much from him. In the early 1990s, I spent a number of years in Norway where I honed my typological skills on the 700,000-piece lithic assemblage from the Farsund Project, SW Norway, as well as numerous other assemblages. I would like to thank Dr Perry Rolfsen, Oldsaksamlingen, Oslo, for inviting me to do this work and supporting me along the way. After having arrived in Scotland in 1998, I obviously read what was available on Scottish and British lithics, and had many highly inspiring and educational discussions with the late Alan Saville, Principal Curator at National Museums Scotland. Alan is sorely missed. During the writing of this book, Dr Andrew David, formerly of English Heritage, kindly commented on several drafts of the manuscript, and he also permitted me to use many of his excellent line drawings of lithic artefacts. It would not have been possible to produce this volume without his input. At the end of the process, Professor Karen Hardy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, reviewed the final draft of the manuscript. I am grateful to them both. Thanks are owed to Beverley Ballin Smith for copy-editing the volume. Drawings and photographs have been borrowed from my own publications, but also from the works of colleagues, and I am grateful to all archaeological institutions and units, authors and excavators, as well as artists and photographers who permitted me to use their illustrations. Permission was obtained from the following institutions:

Star Carr Volume I, 2018

The British Mesolithic Context 277 England, moving into landscapes that were empty of people; however, the rarity of sites in the south suggest a short-lived incursion only. Deepcar type assemblages first appeared in 9460-8705 cal BC (95% probability; start Deepcar-type; see Conneller et al. 2016 figure 5), probably in 9090-8775 cal BC (68% probability). Deepcar type assemblages disappeared in 8200-7240 cal BC (95% probability; end Deepcar-type; Conneller et al. 2016, figure 5), probably in 8075-7620 cal BC (68% probability). It is 95% probable that Deepcar type assemblages first appeared after the first Star Carr type assemblages but it is 100% probable that their use overlapped in time. Deepcar assemblages probably appeared around half a millennium after the first Star Carr type assemblages (Conneller et al. 2016, figure 8). Deepcar assemblages represent both initial pioneer and subsequent residential occupation in the south (see Housley et al. 1997). In the north, the presence of a few Deepcar style microliths at Star Carr in the latest context of the site might suggest a more gradual adoption of these forms by groups residing in this area. Finally, our models suggest basally modified microlith type assemblages first appeared in 9280-8305 cal BC (95% probability; start basal modified; Conneller et al. 2016, figure 6), probably in 8690-8335 cal BC (68% probability). Basally modified microlith type assemblages disappeared in 7030-5845 cal BC (95% probability; end basal modified type; Conneller et al. 2016, figure 6), probably in 6960-6460 cal BC (68% probability). These assemblages certainly overlapped with the use of Star Carr type assemblages and Deepcar type assemblages (100% probable), at least in certain areas of the country. The appearance of basally modified forms coincides with a diversification and regionalisation of the Mesolithic with new areas of Britain occupied; a shift made by all Mesolithic groups in Britain, independent of the microlith forms they favoured. Based on these models, the following review will include discussion of all Star Carr type sites on the basis that these are broadly contemporary with Star Carr itself, with the exception of the southern Welsh Star Carr type sites that are likely to postdate its occupation. Deepcar type sites will also be included in the discussion as these overlap with Star Carr's occupation. However, because many Deepcar type sites are likely to postdate Star Carr, those that have late radiocarbon dates or typologically fit the profile of late Deepcar sites (see Jacobi 1981) will be excluded from the discussion. The following account focuses on excavated sites and is based on a combination of analysis of the original artefactual and faunal material by the two authors, site archives, the Jacobi archive and review of published literature.

Archaeologists of the Mesolithic period have long sought and struggled to interpret site evidence within a regional and seasonally structured model of interpretation. Such models of hunter-gatherer mobility, settlement and subsistence have struggled to uncover and exploit the productive tension between sites and regional archaeological records. This paper explores detailed studies of Earlier Mesolithic assemblages in northern England which share common stylistic and raw material traits. Particular emphasis is placed on establishing how the reduction of lithic materials was organised across the regional landscape and how such analyses of technological organisation can be understood as reflections of cost and/ or risk management in hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies. It reveals a chain of anticipatory lithic procurement, transportation, reduction, tool production and discard linking sites in the low lying Trent valley with upland valley and high elevation Pennine locations. A seasonally structured model of settlement, mobility and technological organisation is developed linked to a strategy in which autumnal hunting targeting established upland red deer rutting grounds by task groups served in managing community subsistence risks. This paper goes some way in demonstrating how the analysis of lithic organisation between waste assemblages for distinctive raw materials can provide an invaluable evidential basis for linking and interpreting site-based evidence at a regional scale.

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ABSTRACT This project was borne out of recent research (Preston 2011; Preston 2013; Preston 2014) which suggests that whilst many researchers have set ambitious goals in attempting to create social narratives from Mesolithic lithic scatters in a landscape context, or sought to derive socio-cultural/stylistic meaning from them, such attempts have been arguably impeded by their reliance upon referential frameworks that fail to integrate, adequately, their theoretical base with systematic methodologies in support of their conclusions. While laudable, and recognising the rich debate that emanates from the research, British Mesolithic studies—and concomitantly the so-called ‘Mesolithic Canon’ (sensu Milner and Woodman 2005)—have been hampered by the lack of three fundamental analytical foundations: 1) a consensus definition of the Mesolithic, its phases and its geographic variation; 2) an accurate, calibrated, sufficiently granular chronology, and; 3) an explicitly defined, standardised, replicable lithic analysis methodology and typology. The most important of these is the third: it underpins the other two. However, this issue is especially acute since there are no agreed minimum standards for analysis and there remain a number of incompatible, unsystematic non-technological methodologies. It is therefore difficult to compare assemblages analysed by different lithicists, to derive reliable conclusions from past analyses and literature, and to communicate interpretations with universal clarity. Hence, interpretations tend to be subjective, result in para data rather than meta data, and are difficult to test in a replicable way. More information is available at: http://lithoscapes.co.uk/projects/meso-lithics-project/ REFERENCES: Preston, P. R., 2011, Lithics to Landscapes: Hunter Gatherer tool use, resource exploitation and mobility during the Mesolithic of the Central Pennines, England, Unpublished D.Phil. Thesis. School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford. http://goo.gl/01BVlW Preston, P. R., 2013, Bones, Stones or Ethnography? Challenging the Mesolithic Mobility Models for Northern England, In Mobility, Transition, and Change in Prehistory and Antiquity. Proceedings of the Graduate Archaeology Organisation Conference on the Fourth and Fifth of April 2008 at Hertford College, Oxford, UK (eds. P. R. Preston, and K. Schorle), 29–48, British Archaeological Reports, Internnational Series, Archaeopress. http://goo.gl/Jx62oY Preston, P. R., 2014, Everything we Know is Wrong? The MESO-lithics Project: Charging lithics into the Mesolithic Canon, Where the Wild Things Are 2.0: Further Advances in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Research Conference, University of Durham January 2014, UK. http://goo.gl/9tmffI

Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1989

The results of an archaeological and environmental (mainly palynological) investigation of a site of Mesolithic age are presented. The inland kame terrace site of Auchareoch on the Isle of Arran has produced some preserved features with over 4400 flint and pitchstone finds, and carbonized hazelnut shells. The extent and character of the occupation area are assessed and shown to be extensive (300-400m 2). The environmental data demonstrate the limitations imposed by soil pollen and charcoal studies, but suggest that the area has experienced possible hunter-gathering and agricultural impacts, prior to soil deterioration and peat growth. An attempt is made to place the site in the wider context of the Mesolithic of northern Britain.