Excavations at Star Carr: past and present

Antiquity, 2012

The authors rewrite the character of Early Mesolithic settlement in Europe with their new research at one of its most famous sites. The picture of small mobile pioneering groups colonising new land is thrown into contention: far from being a small hunter-gatherer camp, Star Carr in 9000 cal BC extended for nearly 2ha and involved the construction of an estimated 30m of lakeside waterfront and at least one post-built house. With some justice, they suspect that the ‘small groups’ of Early Mesolithic Europe may have their rationale in the small excavations of archaeologists.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016

Examples of wetland deposits can be found across the globe and are known for preserving organic archaeological and environmental remains that are vitally important to our understanding of past human–environment interactions. The Mesolithic site of Star Carr (Yorkshire, United Kingdom) represents one of the most influential archives of human response to the changing climate at the end of the last glacial in Northern Europe. A hallmark of the site since its discovery in 1948 has been the exceptional preservation of its organic remains. Disturbingly, recent excavations have suggested that the geochemistry of the site is no longer conducive to such remarkable survival of organic archaeological and environmental materials. Microcosm (laboratory-based) burial experiments have been undertaken, alongside analysis of artifacts excavated from the site, to assess the effect of these geochemical changes on the remaining archaeological material. By applying a suite of macroscopic and molecular a...

2018

Understanding how plants might have been used for food, fuel and building materials in the past can be very challenging, especially for prehistoric hunter-gatherers who trod lightly on the land and as a consequence left little trace of their presence behind them (Mason and Hather 2002). Indeed, very little evidence for plant use or burning was found in the original Star Carr excavations. Clark noted six shallow lenses of charcoal, two of which appear to be associated with pebbles; however, all that could be said was that fires had left little trace except a shallow lens of charcoal and that even where there were settings of stone pebbles associated with them there was no evidence of prolonged use (Clark 1954, 12, Figure 7). Further investigation of burning was undertaken following the 1980s excavations: here Hather (1998) examined charcoal taken from monoliths sampled from the wetland, which was carried out in order to examine whether vegetation burning had happened in situ, locally...

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 2017

Since its publication in 1954 Star Carr has held an iconic status in British Mesolithic archaeology. The original excavations at the site recorded a large assemblage of bone and antler tools from a sequence of peat deposits at the edge of the Lake Flixton. Over 60 years later this remains the largest assemblage of bone and antler artefacts of its date in Britain and has been an invaluable source of information for life in the early Mesolithic. However, the interpretation of this material has been the subject of intense debate, and the assemblage has been variously described as the remains of an in situ settlement, a refuse dump, and the result of culturally prescribed acts of deposition. Fundamentally, these very different ideas of the nature of the site depend on differing interpretations of the environmental context into which the majority of the organic artefacts were deposited. This paper presents the results of recent work at Star Carr that helps to resolve the debate surroundi...

As part of the excavations at Star Carr in the summer of 2007, a 'block' sample of peat from the archaeologically rich lake-edge deposits was removed for micro-excavation in the laboratory. The main aim was to compare on-site excavation and excavation in the laboratory. The techniques employed for the block were intended to maximise the chances of recovering fragile organic remains and provide an understanding of the spatial relationships between them. In addition, the time and resources required to excavate the block were evaluated in order to assess the merits of undertaking block lifting and excavation, with a view to informing future work.

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).

Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

A microlithic flint industry dating to c 5000 be was found, containing 137 retouched pieces and 4700 other fragments. No structures were identified. The occupation level in which the flints were found was sealed by a complex soil horizon that included two marine transgressions.

Oxbow Books, 2017

2019

In diesem Aufsatz wird ein fruhmesolithisches Steininventar aus dem Donich Park in Argyll (Schottland) vorgestellt. Momentan ist nur eine kleine Zahl solcher Inventare aus Schottland bekannt, die uberdies durch mehr oder weniger intensive Vermischung chronologisch beeintrachtigt sind. Das Inventar vom Donich Park stammt von einer lediglich 2,5 m im Quadrat messenden Aretefaktverteilung und wird interpretiert als Hinterlassenschaft vom einmaligen Aufenthalt einer Gruppe von Jagern, bei der es moglicherweise einen rechts- und einen linkshandigen Steinschlager gab. Insofern reprasentiert das Artefaktensemble eine Momentaufnahme. Basierend auf einer eingehenden Darstellung der Funde, besonders der Mikrolithen, werden die Datierung und die Eigenschaft des Fundplatzes sowie die Moglichkeit einer weiteren Untergliederung des schottischen Fruhmesolithikums (EM) und des fruhesten Abschnitts des Spatmesolithikums (LM) diskutiert. Kernpunkt fur die Diskussion der chronologischen Aspekte des Fu...

Excavations were undertaken at Star Carr by Clark in order to find a British counterpart to the well-known European sites such as Mullerup, Holmegård, Sværdborg, Lundby, Duvensee and Ageröd (Clark 1954, 179). Clark noted that there was a certain cultural homogeneity across the North European plain at this time when Britain was still joined to the Continent. As it turned out, the material culture from Star Carr proved to be earlier in date compared to these other sites, which indicated to Clark that Star Carr belonged to a distinct phase of the Early Mesolithic, termed in Northwest Europe the Maglemose culture (Clark 1954, 180).