The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

Hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic
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INTERPRETATION
Archaeologists face considerable challenges in interpreting the surviving evidence. While all people
during the Mesolithic lived by hunting and gathering, that lifestyle is highly variable. Huntergatherers
can live in small, highly mobile egalitarian groups, or at semi-permanent sites in societies
that display significant social differentiation. Archaeological sites can be small, overnight
occupations, camps for specialized activites such as hunting, or residential bases; many are likely
to be palimpsests from multiple occupations, perhaps each of a different character.
To cope with such complexities in site interpretation, a wide range of methods and techniques
is employed. These have changed substantially during the last 50 years, notably with the
development of archaeological science.
DEVELOPMENTS IN MESOLITHIC ARCHAEOLOGY: STAR CARR AS A CASE
STUDY
Star Carr is located in the Vale of Pickering, Yorkshire. Its excavation (1949–1951), and publication
(Clark 1954) ushered in the modern era of Mesolithic studies. Star Carr has remained at the
forefront of Mesolithic studies and is still cited as the ‘type site’ for the British Mesolithic. In
many ways, this status is deserved, for the degree of organic preservation encountered remains
unmatched on any other British site. In other ways, however, it is unfortunate. Star Carr does not
now appear to have been a major site; it was merely a small hunting camp, occupied on a few
occasions, and from which only a limited understanding of the period can be acquired. Ideas
about Star Carr have changed since Clark’s original publication.
The 1954 volume was of key importance in demonstrating why Mesolithic archaeology has to
be a multidisciplinary exercise. It was one of the first publications in which the contribution of
zoologists and botanists was seen as critical in understanding archaeological sites. Only later,
however, did Clark (1972) offer his interpretation of Star Carr, proposing it as a winter base
camp for groups that dispersed into the Pennines or North York Moors during the summer. The
season of occupation was determined on the basis of shed antler recovered on site: modern deer
shed their antlers between October and March. Clark’s interpretation, heavily influenced by the
contemporary research environment, drew on the ecology of modern red deer to reconstruct
their movements in the Postglacial landscape.
Two radical reinterpretations, both founded on Clark’s published data, were proposed within
a decade. Far from being a winter base camp, Star Carr was, Pitts (1979) argued, a specialized site
for working antler and tanning hides. The high frequencies of end scrapers and awls in the tool
assemblage, direct evidence for antler working, and the quantities of birch bark and wood
recovered, which he believed were tanning agents, were employed in this hypothesis. As tanning
requires warmth, Pitts suggested that this took place in the summer months. The site may thus
have been a winter group aggregation site, from which most inhabitants dispersed into the uplands
during the summer, although some members continued in occupation to undertake industrial
activities.
Shortly thereafter, Andersen and colleagues (1981) proposed that Star Carr had been used for
butchery intermittently through the year, with the assemblages of artefacts and bones taking tens
or hundreds of years to accumulate. They noted the absence of site maintenance—the clearing
away of refuse from the assumed principal occupation area. Had occupation been prolonged,
this is likely to have occurred, and consequently they concluded that only short visits were made
to the site. They commented on the ephemeral layers within the hearths, again hardly indicative
of substantial occupation. The first major concern with site formation processes, and substantial