Moonshine over Star Carr: post-processualism, Mesolithic myths and archaeological realities.

Moonshine over Star Carr: post-processualism, Mesolithic myths and archaeological realities. Introduction The early Mesolithic lake-side site of Star Carr Star Carr is a Mesolithic archaeological site in Yorkshire in the United Kingdom. It is around five miles south of Scarborough.It belongs to the early Mesolithic Maglemosian culture, evidence for which is present across the lowlands of Northern Europe, and was occupied in NorthYorkshire North Yorkshire,county (1991 pop. 698,800), 3,209 sq mi (8,313 sq km), N England. The county comprises the districts of Craven, Hambleton, Harrogate, Richmondshire, Ryedale, Scarborough, Selby, and York. , England, has remained a perennial topic of debate andre-interpretation ever since the original, inspired excavations ofGrahame Clark in the early 1950s. The repeated re-interpretations of thesite have arguably ar��gu��a��ble?adj.1. Open to argument: an arguable question, still unresolved.2. That can be argued plausibly; defensible in argument: three arguable points of law. served as a kind of barometer of the successiveswings and fashions in archaeological interpretation over the past 50years, ranging from the strongly ecological and'functionalist' interpretations of Grahame Clark himself, andthe ensuing generation of equally ecologically/ functionally-orientedadherents of the 'new', 'processual' archaeology inthe 1960s and 1970s, to the current wave of passionatelyanti-functionalist, 'post-processualist' approaches which hasincreasingly gripped the younger generations of prehistorians from thelater 1980s onwards. As someone who graduated from Cambridge in 1962 andthen occupied an adjacent office to Ian Hodder Ian Hodder (born 23 November, 1948 in Bristol) is a British archaeologist and pioneer of postprocessualist theory in archaeology that first took root among his students and in his own work between 1980-1990. from 1981 onwards, I havewatched these successive swings of theoretical fashions andobsessions--with increasing awe and fascination--over the whole of myprofessional career. I can even claim to have acted as the researchsupervisor A research supervisor (often referred to as simply "supervisor") is responsible for the general oversight of an academic research project.Research Associates liaise with their research supervisor on a regular basis to advise him or her on the research status and receive any or PhD examiner for many of the key figures in the ongoingdebates (Clive Gamble, Steven Mithen, Tony Sinclair, Paul Pettitt, MarkWhite, Terry Hopkinson, Chantal Conneller, Nicky Milner, and manyothers). I have, one might say, seen it all--mostly from a ringsideseat Noun 1. ringside seat - first row of seating; has an unobstructed view of a boxing or wrestling ringringsideseating, seating area, seating room, seats - an area that includes places where several people can sit; "there is seating for 40 students in this ! In the case of Star Carr (and the Mesolithic generally) the shiftfrom processualist to post-processualist perspectives came rather latein the day. The successive re-interpretations of the Star Carr data byCaulfield (1978), Jacobi (1978), Pitts (1979), Andresen et al. (1981),Price (1982) and Legge & Rowley-Conwy (1988) were all essentiallyecological and processual in character, and no doubt my own co-authoredmonograph on the site published in 1998 (Mellars & Dark 1998) couldbe seen as falling squarely (and unapologetically) into the samemode--with the exception of a suspiciously post-processualist (almost'phenomenological') lapse on page 228! How far I am nowprepared to shift from this position will no doubt become clearer as thepresent discussion proceeds. Although the impact of post-processualism came late to theMesolithic, another generation of (self-styled) 'newMesolithic' scholars has taken up the post-processualist agendawith nothing short of missionary zeal--well reflected in some of thepapers in a number of recent edited volumes (Conneller 2000b; Bevan& Moore 2003; Cobb et al. 2005; Milner & Woodman 2005; Conneller& Warren 2006). All of this is of course entirely predictable and nodoubt fundamentally healthy in any developing discipline. My specificconcern here is to put the spotlight on one or two of the specifically'post-processualist' perspectives which have emerged in theparticular context of Star Carr itself, and to attempt to make a clear,and as far as possible a detached, assessment of how far these newapproaches can fairly claim to have brought significant and sustainablenew insights into the social character and cultural meaning of thisiconic i��con��ic?adj.1. Of, relating to, or having the character of an icon.2. Having a conventional formulaic style. Used of certain memorial statues and busts. site. In the case of Star Carr, the most conspicuous and pervasive newperspective has been to argue for a much greater element of'ritual' in the character of both the human occupation of thesite (or 'place'--to use the new, politically correct politically correctPolitically sensitive adjectiveReferring to language reflecting awareness and sensitivity to another person's physical, mental, cultural, or other disadvantages or deviations from a norm; a person is not mentally retarded, but language), and the character and mode of deposition of the associatedarchaeological material--best reflected perhaps in RichardChatterton's thoughtful paper on 'Star Carr reanalysed'(Chatterton 2003; see also Chatterton 2006). As Chatterton himselfpoints out, the concept of a strong ritual component in the behaviour ofthe Star Carr groups is by no means a new development, and was stronglyemphasised by Grahame Clark himself in his original discussion of theseries of 21 red-deer antler antler:see horn. 'masks' or 'frontlets'recovered from his excavations. He argued that these could well reflectexplicitly ritualistic rit��u��al��is��tic?adj.1. Relating to ritual or ritualism.2. Advocating or practicing ritual.rit or ceremonial practices, reminiscent of thesimilar uses of deer antlers antlersmetaphorical decoration for deceived husband. [Western Folklore: Jobes, 395]See : Cuckoldry in many historically and ethnographically eth��nog��ra��phy?n.The branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures.eth��nog documented societies, ranging from the Tungus shaman shaman(shä`mən, shā`–, shă`–), religious practitioner in various, generally small-scale societies who is believed to be able to diagnose, cure, and sometimes cause illness because of a special relationship with, or rituals of northernSiberia to the Abbott's Bromley Horn Dance of contemporary Britishculture. Clark also emphasised the presence of at least 33 perforatedshale shale,sedimentary rock formed by the consolidation of mud or clay, having the property of splitting into thin layers parallel to its bedding planes. Shale tends to be fissile, i.e., it tends to split along planar surfaces between the layers of stratified rock. beads (currently paralleled from only two or three otherMesolithic sites in Britain) as well as a number of perforated animalteeth and a double-perforated pendant pendantor pendentIn architecture, a sculpted ornament suspended from a vault or ceiling, especially an elongated boss (carved keystone) at the junction of the intersecting ribs of the fan vaulting associated with the English Perpendicular style. of imported North Sea amber. AsChatterton argues at length, and eloquently, ritual of one form oranother is intimately and inextricably in��ex��tri��ca��ble?adj.1. a. So intricate or entangled as to make escape impossible: an inextricable maze; an inextricable web of deceit.b. entwined with effectively allaspects of the social and economic behaviour of all recent hunting andgathering communities, and tends to be especially apparent in theirrelationships with animals and the treatment of the residues of huntedanimals. The concept of a strong element of ritual in the behaviour ofthe Star Carr groups is therefore neither new nor in the leastsurprising, in anthropological and ethnographic eth��nog��ra��phy?n.The branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures.eth��nog terms. The one area where some serious confusions have emerged in therecent studies by Chatterton and others relates to the patterns ofdisposal of the archaeological material in the particular areas of thesite excavated by Clark--i.e. within the currently water-logged organiczones immediately adjacent to the margins of the former lake (Figures 1and 2). It was these areas which preserved abundant traces of bothfaunal remains and a rich haul of associated bone and (above all) antlerartefacts--including the impressive total of 191 complete or fragmentary frag��men��tar��y?adj.Consisting of small, disconnected parts: a picture that emerges from fragmentary information.frag barbed red deer Red Deer, city, CanadaRed Deer,city (1991 pop. 58,134), S central Alta., Canada, on the Red Deer River. It developed as a trade and service center for a region of dairying and mixed farming. antler points, generally accepted to represent the tipsfor wooden spears, intended to hunt the red deer and other species. Thedramatic new perspective proposed by Chatterton is that these remains donot represent simply the residues of 'intense industrialactivities' in this lake-side part of the site, as Clark himself(1954: 21) firmly believed, but instead reflect a policy of systematic'ritual discard' of the artefacts into a zone of either openwater or water-covered reed swamp. These remains in other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently are heldto reflect an explicit act of ritual (probably designed to appease ap��pease?tr.v. ap��peased, ap��peas��ing, ap��peas��es1. To bring peace, quiet, or calm to; soothe.2. To satisfy or relieve: appease one's thirst.3. thespirits of the hunted animals) analogous to that documented for theapparently ritualistic discard of material equipment into bodies of openwater recorded in some later, Neolithic and Bronze-age contexts inBritain and elsewhere. Thus Chatterton writes: 'Thepalaeoenvironmental evidence indicates that these areas were very damp,if not under water, and would have been unsuitable for occupation.... Itis apparent that the land upon which the platform was placed wouldordinarily be under water' (2003: 70). Nicky Milner has similarlycommented: 'Through the work in the 1980s it is now thought thatmuch of the area excavated by Clark may have been open water at the timeof occupation' (Milner 2007: 12). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] This of course is an entirely new and theoretically radicalperspective on the patterns of material culture documented at Star Carr,with profound implications for the underlying ideological andritualistic motivations of its occupants. This model accordingly demandscareful and critical analysis in terms of the full battery of documentedfield evidence--not perhaps the strongest element in some of the recentstudies by Chatterton and others. The fundamental problems with this 'discard into openwater' hypothesis (originally mooted by Price in 1982; see alsoLegge & Rowley-Conwy 1988: 12) were in fact spelled out at length inthe 1998 monograph Star Carr in Context, co-authored by myself and PetraDark 10 years ago (Mellars & Dark 1998; see also Mellars 1999). Theproblems with this model emerged equally clearly from Petra Dark'sthorough re-analysis of the palaeoecological data from the site and frommy own analysis of the detailed spatial distributions of thearchaeological material recorded during Clark's excavations. Therelevant issues can be summarised, fairly briefly, in what follows. [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] Palaeoecological data In the palaeoecological reconstruction provided by Donald Walkerand Harry Godwin Professor Sir Harry Godwin FRS, (9 May 1901 - 12 August 1985) was a prominent English botanist and ecologist of the 20th century. He had a long association with Clare College, Cambridge. in the original Star Carr monograph, the entire zone ofdisposal of the organic archaeological material and the associatedputative birch brushwood 'living platform' was shown as lyingwithin the zone of dense 'reed swamp' which lay between thebirch-covered dryland parts of the site and the open water (andassociated water-lily zone) of the lake itself (Walker & Godwin1954: Figure 8) (see Figure 2). Godwin and Walker indeed emphasised thatthe reed swamp had continued to grow in these areas during the course ofthe Mesolithic occupation (as our own subsequent studies confirmed) butthe critical point to recognise is that reed swamp can continue toflourish in areas where the actual water table lies up to at least c.0.20-0.30m below the base of the overlying overlyingsuffocation of piglets by the sow. The piglets may be weak from illness or malnutrition, the sow may be clumsy or ill, the pen may be inadequate in size or poorly designed so that piglets cannot escape. reed growth. The roots of thereeds may indeed need to 'keep their feet in water' but thisdoes not imply any visible or standing water on the areas of reed growthitself. To equate reed growth with open water would therefore be anecological non-sequitur. At Wicken Fen Wicken Fen is a wetland nature reserve situated near the village of Wicken, Cambridgeshire, England.It is one of Britain's oldest nature reserves, and was the first reserve acquired by the National Trust, in 1899. The reserve includes fenland, farmland, marsh, and reedbeds. in Cambridgeshire familiesfrequently take picnics on the reed beds in the summer months--the timeof the year when Star Carr is known to have been occupied (L. Friday,pers. comm.; Legge & Rowley-Conwy 1988; Mellars & Dark 1998:215-6). The same conclusion emerged equally clearly from Petra Dark'sdetailed re-analysis of the Star Carr deposits published in our 1998monograph (Mellars & Dark 1998: chapters 9-15). Analyses of columnsamples recovered from immediately adjacent to Clark's originalexcavations, and from three separate locations in the area of the woodenplatform (or trackway Track´way`n. 1. Any of two or more narrow paths, of steel, smooth stone, or the like, laid in a public roadway otherwise formed of an inferior pavement, as cobblestones, to provide an easy way for wheels. ) some 30m further to the east, pointed to aclearly defined transition from open water to land-based sediments whichwas estimated on the basis of Cloutman & Smith's published(1988) survey of the site to lie at around 23.4m above present sealevel. Unfortunately, subsequent checking has revealed that the detailedauger auger(ô`gər): see drill. augerTool (or bit) used with a carpenter's brace for drilling holes, usually in wood. It looks like a corkscrew and produces extremely clean holes, almost regardless of how large the bit is. survey of the Star Carr site undertaken by the Vale of Pickering The Vale of Pickering is a low-lying flat area of land in North Yorkshire, England. It is drained by the River Derwent. The landscape is rural with scattered villages and small market towns. It has been inhabited continuously from the Mesolithic period. Research Trust in August 1996 involved an error of around 0.30m in thealtitude measurements, which was reflected in the contours of thesub-peat boulder clay boulder clay:see drift. surface reproduced in Figure 2.5 of our monograph,and subsequently reproduced in Figure 21 of Chatterton's 2003paper. Correction of this error brings the contours of the boulder claysurface much more closely into line with those recorded by Walker &Godwin at the time of Clark's original excavations (Clark 1954:Figure 8; see Figure 2). Once this error is corrected it becomes clearthat the whole of the area excavated by Clark lay above the altitude of23.4m (76ft) estimated from Petra Dark's work to represent thenormal level of the contemporaneous con��tem��po��ra��ne��ous?adj.Originating, existing, or happening during the same period of time: the contemporaneous reigns of two monarchs.See Synonyms at contemporary. lake at the time of the Mesolithicoccupation. In fact, Dark's studies showed clearly that in both thecolumn she analysed from immediately adjacent to Clark'sexcavations (immediately to the south-west of his Cutting II) and insampling column M2 collected from the edge of the 1989 trench locatedsome 30m further to the east (and including one of the timbers from thewooden platform), the transition from clearly water-deposited toland-deposited sediments (with associated pollen and macroscopic macroscopic/mac��ro��scop��ic/ (mak?ro-skop��ik) gross (2). mac��ro��scop��icor mac��ro��scop��i��caladj.1. Large enough to be perceived or examined by the unaided eye.2. plantremains) occurred either very dose to or slightly below the first clearinput of macroscopic and microscopic charcoal fragments into theaccumulating sediments and the associated timbers of the wooden platform(Dark 1998: 133, 142). This evidence leaves no doubt that at the time ofthe initial occupation of Star Carr, the entire area of Clark'sexcavations lay beyond the normal reach of the lake waters--exactly asreconstructed in the original survey by Walker & Godwin in 1954(Figure 2). The occurrence of a few macroscopic remains of aquaticplants within the occupation deposits themselves (Chatterton 2003: 70)could potentially be due to a number of factors--either recurrenttrampling by the human occupants (or animals) within the lake-edge zone,or alternatively by occasional episodes of flooding during the humanoccupation. As Clark has pointed out (1954: 14) some of these plantscould well have been collected by the human occupants themselves. Archaeological observations The entire issue of whether the dense concentration ofarchaeological material (flint artefacts, animal bones, worked red-deerantlers and both complete and broken antler points) recovered by Clarkfrom the lake-edge reed swamp zone at Star Carr reflected a zone of insitu In place. When something is "in situ," it is in its original location. human activities or simply the systematic discard of various formsof occupation material into the lake-edge zone from central living oractivity areas located on the adjacent dryland parts of the site (cf.Price 1982; Legge & Rowley-Conwy 1988: 12) formed a central focus ofour re-analysis in the 1998 monograph on Star Carr--a discussion ofwhich Chatterton and some other recent writers on Star Carr seem to bestrangely unaware. The relevant data are as follows: 1. Firstly, an earlier re-analysis of the Star Carr data byAndresen et al. (1981 ) stressed that systematic ethnoarchaeologicalstudies of patterns of material discard in ethnographically documentedsituations reveal some clear patterns, in which normally only the largerand heavier items of refuse (usually 90mm or more in length) aresystematically 'tossed' away from the in situ activity areas,while most if not all of the smaller residues are normally'dropped' on the working areas themselves (Binford 1978a &b). In this case there is a clear conflict with the patterns proposedearlier by Price (1982) and Legge & Rowley-Conwy (1988: 12), andrepeated by Chatterton and others, for the character of the materialrecovered by Clark from the lake-side zone at Star Carr, which reveals aheavy concentration of many of the smallest and lightest artefacts andwaste residues (microliths, microburins, burin spalls, and thousands ofsmall fragments of flint flaking debris) distributed over effectivelythe whole of this part of the site (see Figure 3). This pattern ofdiscard is clearly at loggerheads log��ger��head?n.1. A loggerhead turtle.2. An iron tool consisting of a long handle with a bulbous end, used when heated to melt tar or warm liquids.3. with any patterns of'toss-zone' disposal recorded in the recentethnoarchaeologically documented situations. 2. A further explicit refutation ref��u��ta��tion? also re��fut��aln.1. The act of refuting.2. Something, such as an argument, that refutes someone or something.Noun 1. of the toss-zone hypothesis--atleast in the case of the lithic lith��ic?1?adj.Consisting of or relating to stone or rock.Adj. 1. lithic - of or containing lithium2. lithic - relating to or composed of stone; "lithic sandstone" material--is provided by the evidencefor at least three separate and statistically highly significantconcentrations of lithic artefacts at three spatially separated pointswithin the reed swamp zone (see Figure 3). These are best reflected inthe two diagonal transects shown in Figure 3 (lower). Significantly,these concentrations show up equally clearly in both the overalldistribution of flint waste, and in the distributions of at least threeof the major categories of retouched tools (scrapers, burins andmicroliths), as well as in the distribution of discarded flint cores(see Figure 4). We fall to see any way in which these patterns can beconvincingly accounted for by any model of repeated 'tossing'of cultural material--over a distance of up to 10m--away from thenorthern, dryland parts of the site into the adjacent, lake-side reedswamp zone. 3. Closer inspection of these distributions reveals some otherinteresting patterns. For example, the spatial distribution of discardedflint cores exhibits a significantly more dispersed pattern than that ofboth the general flint debris and the major categories of retouchedtools--clearly reflected in our analyses of the overall content of thematerial from the 'inner' versus 'outer' parts ofthe distributions (see Figure 5). In our earlier study we suggested thatthis could indeed reflect a pattern of 'tossing' of the largerand heavier flint cores away from the more central, in situ zones ofindustrial activities (as reflected in the three main lithicconcentrations noted above), towards the edges of the activityzone--essentially as ethnographically documented models would suggest.But the pattern in question points strongly to patterns of tossing fromthe main centres of activity located within the reed swamp zone itself,and not from the adjacent, dryland parts of the site--best reflectedperhaps in the scarcity of material towards the northwestern parts ofthe distribution, in Clark's grid squares A-C/29-33. [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] [FIGURE 5 OMITTED] A second interesting feature reflected in the lithic distributionsis the existence of some clear contrasts between the contents of thematerial from the three major spatial concentrations. Thus whereasconcentration 1 (to the western side of the overall distribution) showsa dominant component of microliths and scrapers, concentrations 2 and 3(further to the east and south) show a dominance of burins and cores,with significantly lower frequencies of microliths and scrapers (Figure6). How, I wonder, are these contrasts to be explained in terms of anessentially unstructured pattern of 'tossing' from theneighbouring dryland areas, located between 5m and 10m further to thenorth? 4. Finally, and in the context of the present discussion mostsignificantly, the distribution of barbed antler points shows a patternwhich is closely similar to that of the various categories of flintartefacts discussed above, and which seems again to show at least stronghints of separate concentrations in the areas of lithic concentrations 1and 2, and perhaps 3 (see Figure 4, lower; in the more northerly partsof the distributions the poor preservation of antler and other organicmaterial renders any further comparisons impossible). In terms ofClark's own recorded distributions, the spatial distribution of theantler points is even more concentrated than that of the associatedlithic artefacts, with a sharp fall off in the distribution away fromthe most central parts of the overall artefact See artifact. distribution zone. Onceagain, to account for this pattern in terms of the casual'tossing' of material into the reed swamp zone--over a span ofbetween 200 and 300 years of repeated occupation on the site--would bestretching credibility to its limits. The only possible exception to thepattern is provided by the three points recovered from the extremelakeward end of Clark's long Cutting II (Figure 4). As Pitts (1979)has pointed out, it is conceivable that this could reflect a policy ofwater-softening of the antler artefacts at the edges of the lake,perhaps as a way of straightening the points. Interestingly, these threepoints appear to be associated closely with the end of the large felledbirch tree, which projects from the southern edge of the main artefactscatter into the margin of the lake itself (see Clark 1954: Figure 2).In any event, these three points would provide a very slender basis forany general hypothesis involving the ritualistic 'deposition intoopen water' of the 191 barbed points at Star Carr. [FIGURE 6 OMITTED] The 'ritual discard' of barbed antler points The 64 000 dollar question in this whole debate of course is toexplain the occurrence of the 191 complete or fragmentary barbed antlerpoints recovered from the areas excavated by Clark--and in particular toevaluate the roles of ritual versus functional factors in the depositionof these artefacts. Clark himself had no doubt that the locus of hisexcavations represented (in his words) 'a scene of intense activityin the fabrication fabrication (fab´rikā´shn),n the construction or making of a restoration. of the tools and equipment needed in daily life'(Clark 1954: 21) in which the manufacture of barbed points played amajor and central role. Chatterton and some others have now proposed themore 'exciting' alternative that the occurrence of the richhaul of antler points recovered from Clark's excavations can onlybe plausibly interpreted in terms of a systematic and ideologicallymotivated policy of ritualistic 'discard' of the points intothe deposits, probably motivated by complex ideological relationshipsbetween the Mesolithic hunters and the animals they hunted--and theassociated material equipment employed in the hunting activities. Thecentral and critical component in their model is that even if a majorcomponent of antler working demonstrably de��mon��stra��ble?adj.1. Capable of being demonstrated or proved: demonstrable truths.2. Obvious or apparent: demonstrable lies. took place at Star Carr itself(as demonstrated by the large numbers of extensively worked anddiscarded red deer antlers) the final production and shaping of thebarbed points was carried out at some other location (or locations) atsome distance from Star Carr itself, from which the antler points weresubsequently--and deliberately--taken back to Star Carr for ritualisticdeposition into the lake-edge deposits. In Chatterton's own words:"It appears that while the blanks for barbed point manufacture wereproduced at Star Carr, the barbed points themselves were made elsewhere,used, and then redeposited at Star Carr' (Chatterton 2003: 72). The question of whether this hypothetical ritualistic depositioncould ever have taken place into 'the open waters of the lake'has already been dealt with above, and will not be pursued further here.As noted above, the present issue centres on the specific hypothesisthat the antler points were not in fact produced at Star Carr itself,but were produced in their finished format some other location(s) fromwhich the points were then returned to the Star Carr location for thehypothetical, ideological discard or deposition rituals. Since thisissue is clearly critical to the whole of our current conception of therole and significance of Star Carr within the context of the BritishMesolithic, the relevant data and arguments demand careful scrutiny. AsConneller (2003: 82) has commented: To change our understanding of StarCarr is to change our understanding of the British Mesolithicitself'. The relevant facts follow. In the first place (as noted above) Chatterton himself acknowledgesthat at least the initial stages of barbed point production were indeedundertaken at Star Carr itself, as reflected unambiguously by the totalof at least 83 extensively worked red-deer antlers from which long'splinters' of antler had been carefully removed by the welldocumented 'groove and splinter' technique (employing the useof flint burins). Clark himself (1954: 118) estimated that at least 300of these splinters had been removed from the 100 or so antlers and reddeer frontlets actually recovered from the site--a total whichsubstantially exceeds the total of 191 complete or broken antler pointsrecovered (along with the red deer antler beams) from the site. Further proof of this is provided by the recovery of at least fiveor six detached bur otherwise unshaped splinters of red deer antler and(equally significantly) by the large numbers of flint burins recoveredfrom the same areas. As Chatterton (2003) points out, this highfrequency of burins is not only quantitatively the most abundantartefact form represented at Star Carr, but is totally unparalleled atother sites, either in the Vale of Pickering lake basin or in theBritish Mesolithic as a whole (see also Mellars 1976; Jacobi 1978). Thecombination of these exceptionally high burin frequencies with the largenumber of grooved-and-splintered red deer antlers leaves no doubtwhatever that the antler blanks for barbed point production wereproduced--systematically and in large numbers--at Star Carr itself. The notion that these initial splinters of antler may actually havebeen transformed into fully finished barbed points in some location(s)away from Star Carr itself seems to derive from a suggestion originallymooted by Roger Jacobi in 1978, to the effect that 'there are nohalf-made points, no splinters in the initial stages of grinding downinto an oval section, nor any of the hundreds of minute lozenges to beexpected as a by-product of the notching out of the barbs' (Jacobi1978: 318). The absence of partially-worked barbed points on the sitecan be disputed, as noted further below. Exactly how large thehypothetical 'minute lozenges' of antler may have been remainsan interesting point for speculation which has never been investigatedby experimental replication studies. At best one can hardly be speakingof antler fragments more than at most a few millimetres or so in size.The suggestion that these pieces would have been identified andrecovered during the excavations conducted by Grahame Clark in the early1950s--in the absence of fine-scale water sieving techniques--can hardlynow be taken seriously. The same arguments apply to the non-recovery ofsuch tiny fragments during the subsequent 1985 excavations in the areaof the timber platform located approximately 30m to the east ofClark's original excavations (Mellars & Dark 1998; Chatterton2003: 72) where, despite the recovery of at least five clearly groovedand splintered red deer antlers, only a single barbed point wasencountered. To base arguments about the 'unfinished'production of barbed points on this kind of evidence is clearlystretching the available archaeological data far beyond its permissiblelimits. To add a further counter to these arguments we should note thatClark did indeed record the presence of at least three or four barbedpoints in which the shaping of the barbs barbsthe primary, delicate filaments that are given off the shaft of a bird's contour feather. They project from the rachis and bear the barbules. was apparently left in anunfinished state, demonstrating conclusively that the working of atleast some of the points was completed up to an including the shaping ofthe barbs at Star Carr itself (Clark 1954: 128-36). A further argument advanced by Chatterton relates to the presenceof around 54 effectively complete specimens of barbed antler points atStar Carr, as compared to around 137 incomplete or broken specimens--forthe most part apparently 'broken in antiquity' (as opposed torecent excavation breaks) (Clark 1954: 123). As Legge and Rowley-Conwy(1988) have discussed, the occurrence of these complete barbed pointscould be explained by a number of potential mechanisms--either that theywere manufactured and deliberately 'cached' for future use onthe site, or alternatively (and more prosaically) that these representartefacts that were simply lost or overlooked on the site during thesuccessive stages of the occupation sequence. Other complete pointscould have been discarded because they were deemed to be imperfect orunfunctional following manufacture--perhaps because of the curvature curvatureMeasure of the rate of change of direction of a curved line or surface at any point. In general, it is the reciprocal of the radius of the circle or sphere of best fit to the curve or surface at that point. ofthe finished points which could not be effectively straightened by watersoftening Water softeningThe process of removing divalent cations, usually calcium or magnesium, from water. When a sample of water contains more than 120 mg of these ions per liter (0. (Pitts 1979). If one allows for a total span of occupation onthe site which could well amount to 200-300 years (as the radiocarbonevidence and documented charcoal input into the accumulating organicdeposits suggests: Mellars & Dark 1998) then it would only benecessary to invoke the accidental loss, discard or caching of onecomplete antler point every three or four years to account for the totalof 54 complete points recovered by Clark. In the context of anessentially reed-covered surface, where artefacts could easily betrampled into the soft sediments on which the industrial activities weretaking place, this would not suggest an inordinate degree of accidentalloss--or personal carelessness--on the part of the Mesolithic occupants. Potentially a more interesting issue concerns the high frequency ofincomplete, clearly broken barbed points recovered from the site.Chatterton points out that at least some of these had clearly beenhafted (indicated by traces of resin on the bases of three pieces) andpresumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. represent implements that had been returned to the sitefollowing hunting expeditions elsewhere. The most obvious explanationfor these and the remainder of the broken bases of barbed points wouldbe that they represent the basal parts of hafted spear tips, which werereturned to the site (most probably along with the associated woodenhafts) for replacement with complete, newly-manufactured points. In the case of the broken tips of the barbed points (lacking bases)there are a number of possible options: that they were brokenaccidentally during manufacture (perhaps during the cutting of thebarbs); or alternatively that they were otherwise broken by trampling atsome other stage during the general activities undertaken on the site.An alternative (and more interesting) option is that they couldrepresent the broken tips of hunting spears which were returned to thesite embedded in the carcases of the hunted animals, following breakageof the spear points either on impact or during the attempted removal ofthe spears from the carcases (cf. Jacobi 1978: 315). Since many of thebarbed points were up to 0.30m in length, this form of breakage wouldpresumably be a common occurrence. In any event, it is interesting tonote that the broken tips of the barbed points were outnumbered almost3:1 by the remains of the broken bases (Clark 1954: 123). Whichever waythese different scenarios are visualised, to assume that these brokenfragments of barbed points were deliberately brought back to the sitefrom distant hunting expeditions specifically with a view to ritualisticdiscard into the accumulating occupation material (as broken specimens)would seem to be a distinctly contrived explanation for a pattern whichcould just as easily (and far more parsimoniously) be explained by avariety of other purely practical or functional mechanisms. For one final and powerful objection to the 'ritualdiscard' hypothesis, one might refer again to the fact that theoverall spatial distribution of the surviving barbed points recorded inClark's excavations coincides almost exactly with that of all theother forms of discarded industrial material on the site--i.e. primaryflint flaking debris, several hundred discarded cores, at least threeseparate categories of retouched stone tools and over 80 clearly workedred deer antlers from which the antler points were evidently produced(see Figure 4). Since no one to the best of my knowledge has everproposed that all of these other categories of artefactual adj. 1. of or pertaining to an artefact.2. made by human actions.Adj. 1. artefactual - of or relating to artifactsartifactual materialshould be attributed to systematic ritualistic deposition on the site,why should we invoke this special (special pleading SPECIAL PLEADING. The allegation of special or new matter, as distinguished from a direct denial of matter previously alleged on the opposite side. Gould on Pl. c. 1, s. 18; Co. Litt. 282; 3 Wheat. R. 246 Com. Dig. Pleader, E 15. ?) explanation toaccount for the almost identical patterns of discard of barbed antlerpoints? How likely is it that the spatial distribution of artefactsdeposited by this special 'ritualistic' pattern of discardshould coincide so closely with that of the other, routinely industrialaspects of the archaeological material--and if so, exactly why and how?All of these remain at present unanswered questions. And certainly,whatever mechanisms are proposed for their deposition, these artefactswere never discarded into the 'open waters of the lake', forall the palaeoecological and other reasons set out earlier. Confronted by all this evidence, it is difficult to see any verycoherent or persuasive arguments for suggesting that the range of 191barbed antler points recovered by Clark from Star Carr should reflectanything more than the routine manufacture, breakage and replacement ofday-to-day hunting equipment on the site--or the systematic preparationfor future hunting expeditions--exactly as Clark himself envisaged over50 years ago (1954: 21). Given the long time-span of repeated occupationon the site clearly reflected in the available radiocarbon dates andassociated charcoal records, it would have required no more than theloss, breakage or discard of more than a single complete or fragmentarybarbed point during each seasonal visit to the site to account for thedocumented total of 191 barbed points--hardly an impressive rate ofdeposition, allowing for the c. 200 years or so of repeated visits tothe site, and the complex reed swamp (or alternatively 'birchbrushwood') surface on which the remains were accumulating--andespecially allowing for the high proportion (c. 75 per cent) of brokenspecimens. If one wanted to press the ritual agenda further, one mightperhaps speculate that some form of ideology dictated that anyindividual barbed point should only be used in a single huntingexpedition, or perhaps to kill a single animal (as a further act ofappeasement appeasementForeign policy of pacifying an aggrieved nation through negotiation in order to prevent war. The prime example is Britain's policy toward Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in the 1930s. to the animal spirits animal spiritspl.n.The vitality of good health.animal spiritsNoun, ploutgoing and boisterous enthusiasm [from a vital force once supposed to be dispatched by the brain to all points of the body] ), which would of course enhance therate of disposal of the points on the site in the course of otherwisepurely functional This article is written like a personal reflection or and may require .Please [ improve this article] by rewriting this article in an . manufacture, repair and replacement of the huntingequipment. Interestingly, this particular scenario has not as yet beenproposed by enthusiasts of ritual interpretations. Conclusions: Star Carr in context To my mind the whole of this scenario concerning the'ritualistic deposition' of barbed antler points at Star Carrstands as a slightly unnerving un��nerve?tr.v. un��nerved, un��nerv��ing, un��nerves1. To deprive of fortitude, strength, or firmness of purpose.2. To make nervous or upset. example of some of the inherent dangersof the current fashion for imaginative 'post-processualist'interpretations in prehistory--i.e. an attempt to promote a fashionableand exciting new ideological explanation for a rather mundane andlargely predictable pattern of archaeological data. In order to pushthrough this theoretical agenda, the proponents can be moved to ignoremany aspects of the published archaeological data or to skip lightlyover some of its most obvious patterns. Ultimately these approaches haveto be answerable an��swer��a��ble?adj.1. Subject to being called to answer; accountable. See Synonyms at responsible.2. That can be answered or refuted: an answerable charge.3. to the hard archaeological data, an obligation thatnone of us can escape. Is this the real fate of the new wave ofpost-processual archaeology (at least in the context of the BritishMesolithic) at the start of the twenty-first century? Are we in dangerof embarking on a new 'silly season' in Mesolithic studies,where people don't live any more, merely practise'ritual'? To end on a more positive note, the one area where I totally agreewith Chatterton, Conneller and others is in the unique character of theStar Carr site within the large complex of similar-age sites distributedaround the Vale of Pickering lake basin--a point I laboured at somelength in the 1998 monograph (Mellars & Dark 1998: 226-8). The siteas a whole is spatially extensive, and quite clearly a range of specialthings were happening there which, to the best of our current knowledge,were not happening (at least on the same scale) at the other broadlycontemporaneous sites around the lake margins. This includes large-scalewoodworking (as reflected in the 1985 timber platform, and an abundanceof core axes in the lithic equipment--totally unknown elsewhere in theVale), the presence of 33 shale beads, the massive concentration ofantler-working technology (reflected in both the abundant remains of theantlers themselves and the unparalleled predominance pre��dom��i��nance? also pre��dom��i��nan��cyn.The state or quality of being predominant; preponderance.Noun 1. predominance - the state of being predominant over otherspredomination, prepotency of burins in theassociated lithic equipment), the high concentration of barbed antlerpoints--of which only a single example has been recorded from othersites in the Vale, the unique series of 21 red deer antler frontlets andthe extensive evidence of recurrent burning of the local reed swamp(Mellars & Dark 1998). Clearly, the Star Carr location was'special' in many respects and formed a unique focus for awide range of technological, economic, and no doubt social and relatedceremonial activities. As we pointed out in our 1998 monograph, the mostcentral and potentially richest areas of the actual occupation zone onthe site were almost certainly located immediately to the north ofClark's excavations, in the area now destroyed by the presentchannel of the Hertford River. One can only speculate at present as towhat these areas may originally have contained. Of course all of this could point persuasively to the long-favourednotion that Star Carr served essentially as a major economic and socialbase camp location, probably occupied by a relatively large social group(Clark himself estimated perhaps 4-5 nuclear families, based on thelimited parts of the site excavated by him) perhaps analogous to the'local band' structures widely documented among recenthunter-gatherer communities (Kelly 1995). If these locations wereoccupied over a substantial part of the annual cycle, this might well beexpected to reflect a wide range of economic and social activities,amongst which (to judge by recent ethnographic examples) various formsof ritual and ceremonial would be expected to play a major role. Thesecould equally serve as the social and residential bases from which morespecialised activities were carried out at other locations around thelake margins--as Chantal Conneller has recently documented in severalstimulating papers (Conneller 2000a & b, 2005). The recent (2008)discovery of a well defined living structure slightly to the east ofClark's excavations and closely adjacent to the wooden platform ortrackway encountered in 1985 (Mellars & Dark 1998) clearly addsfurther weight to this interpretation (N. Milner, pers. comm.). What we must never lose site of, of course, is the prolongedduration of the repeated occupations of Star Carr and the potential formajor variations in the activities (and perhaps social units) present onthe site during the different episodes of occupation--a variation whichit remains virtually impossible to isolate in archaeological andstratigraphic stra��tig��ra��phy?n.The study of rock strata, especially the distribution, deposition, and age of sedimentary rocks.strat terms in a complex palimpsest palimpsest(păl`ĭmpsĕst'): see manuscript. of this nature. Even so itis clear that some of the most central and 'special'activities represented at Star Carr continued--recurrently--overapparently the greater part of the documented occupationsequence--reflected most strikingly in the continued (intensive) workingof red deer antler, and the occurrence of barbed antler points--over atotal span of at least 200 years. Quite clearly, there was a strongsocial and historical tradition (or 'folk memory') in the useof this location, which no doubt reflects a combination of bothsocially-transmitted traditions or 'memories' in the minds ofthe individuals involved and the special environmental and economicattractions of the Star Carr site location--as we discussed and analysedat length in the final chapter of the 1998 monograph. To emphasise boththe social/historical/ideological dimensions of the site and the crucialenvironmental, ecological and economic aspects of the occupation is notmerely permissible and 'appropriate' in conceptual terms, butultimately and fundamentally essential and indispensable if we are everto achieve a balanced evaluation of Star Carr in the overall socialcontext of the British Mesolithic. Perhaps we really do need anintelligent combination of both functional/ecological/processual andmore imaginative 'post-processualist' perspectives, if we areever to achieve an integrated understanding of this iconic andlong-debated site. Some form of intellectual compromise and consensusmay yet win the day! Perhaps this will be the new direction--and thereal achievement--of the present generation of 'newMesolithic' studies at the start of the twenty-first century AD. Inview of my post-processualist 'lapses' in the 1998 monograph,perhaps I can even apply for deferred membership of this generation? Acknowledgements I am greatly indebted to Dora Kemp for preparing the illustrationsfor the paper, and for the helpful comments of two referees and a numberof other colleagues on the paper. References ANDRESEN, J.M., B.F. BYRD, M.D. ELSON, R.H. MCGUIRE, R.G. MENDOZA,E. STASK1 & J.P. WHITE. 1981. The deer hunters: Star Carr reconsidered. WorldArchaeology 13: 31-46. BEVAN, L. & J. MOORE. 2003. 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Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). . CLOUTMAN, E.W. & A.G. SMITH. 1988. Palaeoenvironments in theVale of Pickering. Part 3: Environmental history at Star Carr.Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 54: 37-58. COBB, H.L., F. COWARD, L. GRIMSHAW & S. PRICE. 2005.Investigating prehistoric hunter-gatherer identities: case studies fromPalaeolithic and Mesolithic Europe (British Archaeological ReportsInternational Series 1411). Oxford: Archaeopress. CONNELLER, C.J. 2000a. Fragmented space? Hunter-gatherer landscapesin the Vale of Pickering, in C.J. Conneller (ed.) New approaches to thePalaeolithic and Mesolithic (Archaeological Review from Cambridge 17.1):138-47. Cambridge: Archaeological Review from Cambridge. --(ed.) 2000b. 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The foraging spectrum: diversity in hunter-gathererlifeways. Washington (D.C.): Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian Institution,research and education center, at Washington, D.C.; founded 1846 under terms of the will of James Smithson of London, who in 1829 bequeathed his fortune to the United States to create an establishment for the "increase and diffusion of Press. LEGGE, A.J. & P.A. ROWLEY-CONWY. 1988 Star Carr revisited: are-analysis of the large mammals. London: Birkbeck College. MELLARS, P. 1976. Settlement patterns and industrial variability inthe British Mesolithic, in G. de G. Sieveking, I.H. Longworth & K.E. Wilson (ed.) Problems insocial and economic archaeology: 375-99. London: Duckworth. --1999. Revising the Mesolithic at Star Carr. British ArchaeologyOctober: 8-11. MELLARS, P. & P. DARK. 1998. Star Carr in context: newarchaeological and palaeoecological investigations at the EarlyMesolithic site of Star Carr, North Yorkshire (McDonald InstituteMonographs). Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. MILNER, N. 2007. Fading Star. British Archaeology Sept./Oct.:10-14. MILNER, N. & P. WOODMAN (ed.). 2005. Mesolithic studies at thebeginning of the 21st century. Oxford: Oxbow. PITTS, M. 1979. Hides and antlers: a new look at thegatherer-hunter site at Star Carr, North Yorkshire. World Archaeology11: 32-42. PRICE, T.D. 1982. Willow tails and dog smoke. Quarterly Review ofArchaeology 3(1) : 4-7. WALKER, D. & H. GODWIN. 1954. Lake stratigraphy stratigraphy,branch of geology specifically concerned with the arrangement of layered rocks (see stratification). Stratigraphy is based on the law of superposition, which states that in a normal sequence of rock layers the youngest is on top and the oldest on the , pollenanalysis Analysis of the distribution of pollen grains of various species contained in surface layer deposits, especially peat bogs and lake sediments, from which a record of past climate may be inferred. and vegetational history, in J.G.D. Clark (ed.) Excavations atStar Carr: 25-69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paul Mellars, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge,Downing Street Downing Street,Westminster, London, England. On the street are the British Foreign Office and, at No. 10, the residence of the first lord of the Treasury, who is usually (although not necessarily) the prime minister of Great Britain. , Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK Received: 30 September 2008; Accepted: 31 October 2008; Revised: 13January 2009