Excavations at Star Carr

Star Carr is the first early Mesolithic site in Europe from which the full complement of bone, antler, wood and other organic matter has been recovered alongside the flint industry, and stratified into deposits enabling dating by pollen-analysis. Highly successful carbon tests carried out in Chicago confirmed a date some-where in the 8th millennium B.C. Star Carr gives by far the fullest picture yet established, from excavations anywhere in Europe, of a community of hunter-fishers living at the beginning of the Post-glacial period: their mode of life and their handicrafts can be reconstructed more nearly completely here than anywhere else. Star Carr has this further importance, that It links numerous sites in North-West Europe of hitherto unknown age, and bears directly on the question of continuity of cultural tradition from Late-glacial to Post-glacial times in Northern Europe.