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Eleven thousand years ago, Lake Flixton – in what today is the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire – was at the centre of several shore settlements constructed by groups of hunter-gathers. Beside the reed-fringed waters, Mesolithic communities built shelters and large lake-edge platforms; butchered animals and processed plants and hides; and crafted an eclectic array of objects needed for both everyday and more enigmatic activities. Today, these groups, their constructions, and even Lake Flixton itself have long vanished from view, but the once-waterlogged landscape has preserved a wealth of archaeological evidence to illuminate our prehistoric predecessors.
Known as Star Carr, the site’s secrets were first revealed by John Moore in 1947, before more extensive excavations were carried out by Grahame Clark in 1949-1951, and by the Star Carr Archaeology Project in 2004-2015 (see CA 282 and 349). The best-known fruits of these investigations are the extraordinary organic finds preserved by the peat-rich soil – from the earliest evidence of carpentry in Britain to over 30 deer skull headdresses – but just as significant are the thousands of fragments of flint that have been recovered from the site. They represent the most prevalent and most consistently well-preserved archaeological material from Star Carr, with almost 42,000 pieces of knapped flint – including various tool-types, as well as waste flakes produced when items were made or resharpened – found during the most recent excavations.
Worked flints can offer illuminating information about the kinds of activity that were carried out on prehistoric sites. Traditionally, these interpretations have been based on grouping tools by type, and looking for ethnographic comparisons, where the ways that more contemporary hunter-gatherer communities use flint tools are projected on to how they were used in the Mesolithic. This approach that has, in the past, seen entire areas of occupation assigned to broad site-types – ‘home-base’, ‘hunting camp’, ‘butchery site’ – based on the frequency of different tool types found. It is possible to glean more nuanced insights, however, by looking at the tools themselves more closely.
Microscopic marks
When flints are used for various tasks – such as cutting plants, cleaning animal hides, scraping scales from fresh fish, or stripping bark from wood – their outer surfaces take on microscopic, tell-tale traces called ‘microwear’. The key to translating these patches of polish or edge damage into possible activities lies in examining them under a powerful microscope to establish the exact nature of the markings, and then comparing them to a range of reference examples created by experimental archaeologists. This aspect involves using replica flint tools to carry out various activities involving diverse ‘contact materials’, creating known wear-patterns on the experimental artefacts that can be compared with the archaeological marks to help determine how they were made.
Microwear analysis is a hugely time-consuming process but, particularly when combined with geochemical evidence, animal remains, or pollen data (all of which are richly available at Star Carr) to shed more light on available materials, it can bring long-vanished communities vividly to life once more. Sometimes it is only possible to say if the material being worked was hard or soft: something soft, like a plant, often makes contact with every crease and undulation on a tool, for example, while an unyielding material like hard wood only touches the uppermost parts of a tool’s edge, meaning that they create strikingly different polish patterns. In other cases, however, it is possible to interpret an activity in remarkable detail.
If the microwear is sufficiently well-preserved, it is possible for an expert eye to distinguish between scrapers used for cleaning fresh, wet, animal hide and those used on dry skins; to determine if a blade was used for butchering meat, cutting plant fibres, or crafting a tool made of bone; and even to search a microlith that had once tipped an arrow for evidence of contact with meat or bone to indicate whether the projectile had hit its target. When these insights are combined with spatial data of where each tool was found on site, we gain much clearer ideas of how particular settlements were used. These techniques allow us to redefine and gain a more nuanced understanding of Mesolithic settlements: some were organised, not dedicated solely to single tasks like butchery or woodworking, but with different tasks carried out in different areas.
Microwear analysis previously carried out by Dr Aimée Little for the Star Carr Archaeology Project identified traces of use on 166 of the 220 flints examined across the whole site; these were determined to relate to working antler, bone, fish, meat, hides, plants, and wood, as well as projectile impact evidence, indicating a wide range of activities being undertaken by the site’s occupants. Now Dr Jessica Bates of the University of York has undertaken the first microwear study specifically focused on flints found in and around the three Mesolithic structures that have been identified at the site. The resulting paper (co-authored with Professor Chantal Conneller and Professor Nicky Milner, two of the Star Carr Archaeology Project’s co-directors, and Dr Little, and published in PLOS ONE – see ‘Further information’ box below) reveals that their interiors, too, witnessed a wide range of productive tasks, with evidence of zoning even within these smaller spaces.
Magnifying the Mesolithic
Jessica’s research began by plotting the flint finds using spatial mapping software called a Geographic Information System (GIS) to help determine areas of interest and target which flints to sample; recovered artefacts were then initially assessed using a low-magnification (10×) microscope to check for signs of wear, and those with possible signs of use were then examined more closely under 20× magnification. Some 341 flints were analysed in all – 148 from the eastern structure, 102 from the central, and 91 from the western – and any markings were compared to reference material prepared by experienced experimental archaeologist Diederik Pomstra. (He and Jessica were also recently involved in a collaboration between the University of York and the Yorkshire Museum, which created a temporary reconstruction of the eastern structure; see CA 415 and photo below.)
This analysis revealed evidence of productive activities taking place within all three structures. The central structure is the oldest of the trio, radiocarbon dated to 9300-9200 BC, with the largest concentration of post-holes and pits associated with it, though the full extent of its footprint is unclear. This structure produced the lowest density of flint finds, too – 402 in all – perhaps suggesting that it was cleared out more regularly, or used with a different frequency or function to the other, later structures. Of the 102 flints analysed by Jessica, microwear traces were identified on just 47, and few were clustered sufficiently closely to indicate specific areas of activity, but those with polish nevertheless proved instructive.
Ten flint blades and scrapers were interpreted as having been used on bone, while meat-processing traces were identified on a single bladelet, perhaps suggesting that butchery had taken place within the structure. The next most common wear-type related to wood, with six tools bearing different directions of polish pointing to various aspects of crafting objects from this material – planing, graving, and perforating – which fits well with the diversity of wooden items that have been excavated on the site. In joint second place, six more flints appear to have been hide-working tools, used variously on fresh and dry skins. Three of these were found outside the main hollow of the structure, together with another scraper bearing possible fish-polish, perhaps produced by scraping scales from skin to produce fish leather. ‘Fish leather is as durable and effective as large animal hide,’ the PLOS ONE paper notes. These four scrapers were found to the east of the structure, near an arc of subsidiary features; might this suggest that they should be interpreted as some kind of drying rack or a frame used for scraping and preparing skins?
Of the remainder, one flint had been used to work antler, and three bore plant microwear. ‘Plants are the best thing to look at, as they often produce the clearest, most-developed polish,’ Jessica told CA. ‘Especially silica-rich plants like reeds and rushes – if the tool has been used extensively, these materials can sometimes produce a macroscopically visible sheen on a tool’s edge that is really diagnostic. Once you move into the Neolithic period, and people are cultivating cereals, you can observe a really incredible sheen on cereal-processing tools that can sometimes be seen without a microscope – those are a treat to analyse.’ While Star Carr’s Mesolithic occupants lived well before agriculture was adopted in Britain, Lake Flixton was fringed with silica-rich reeds that left traces on the blades used to harvest or process them for fibres.
The western structure (radiocarbon dated to 8945-8760 BC) is the most tentative construction, having no central hollow: its ‘footprint’ is represented instead by seven likely post-holes and a possible eighth, as well as a single pit. It did, however, provide the greatest number of flint finds: an impressive 5,058. Jessica analysed 88 of these, identifying signs of microwear on 52. Given that the western structure is also notable for its particularly dense scatter of animal bone and antler, it seems fitting that many of the tools appear to have been used for processing animals. Eight cutting tools had meat-working traces, and five more bore evidence of contact with bone – though the artefacts were not just being used to prepare food. One fragment of scraper appears to have been used to remove flesh from bone, perhaps so that it could be used to make an object.
These tools all lay within the north-eastern part of the sampled area, and further north-east still there was a small group of bone-working tools – two burins, a scraper, and another flint fragment – which appear to have been used to groove and engrave this material. Flints identified as woodworking tools testify to a variety of tasks, including cutting, scraping, and removing bark, using both hard and softer wood, but they were too scattered to suggest a specific area for such activities. Finally, four microliths were interpreted as possible projectiles, with traces of meat- and bone-contact, though one appears to have been later de-hafted and recycled into a tool used for cutting plants.
Exploring interior organisation
Broadly contemporary with the western structure, the eastern example is the most complete and most clearly defined of the three (which is why it was chosen for the recent reconstruction), with its footprint picked out by post-holes forming a circle at least 3.5m in diameter, and a central hollow. As this was the most convincing structure among the trio, and as there were notably better-preserved flint pieces among the 1,921 examples recovered from its footprint, this area was selected for particularly close analysis in the second phase of Jessica’s project. Focusing her attention solely on its flint finds, she strove to analyse as many as possible over the course of her PhD, alongside those already analysed from the central and western structures. Some 146 were examined from the eastern structure in total, with 94 revealing signs of wear, and each of these was plotted using GIS to map where they had been deposited within the structure.
Intriguingly, this revealed that specific areas of its footprint may have been devoted to specific tasks. It appears that meat-processing was predominantly associated with the southern half of the sampled area (represented by polish on ten flints), while bone-working tools were mainly located to the north. The flints within this latter category were particularly interesting as their motions of use were indicative, on the whole, of planing and grooving, which is the type of activity we expect to see if crafting a bone tool. Meanwhile, a fragment of antler, together with the discovery of possible antler polish on a bladelet, suggest that this craft was being carried out in the northern area of structure, too; the small, delicate tool would not have been used for splitting complete antlers, but might have helped to shape or refine small objects like the barbed points that have been found at Star Carr. Woodworking appears to have also been focused on an area to the north-west, with six tools indicating various cutting, planing, engraving, and scraping tasks.
Evidence of hide-working (represented by eight tools) overlaps both northern and southern ‘zones’, though it appears that wet hides were mainly worked to the south, close to the butchery activity, while dry hides were processed nearer to the area of bone-working in the north. Similarly, plant-working polish was identified on eight tools in two distinct areas, with one to the north indicating non-siliceous plant-working (e.g. nettles) and the zone to the south evidencing siliceous plant traces (e.g. from reeds). This was taken to suggest that messier activities, such as butchery, fresh hide-processing, and scraping reeds were undertaken in one area to the south. A crafting area was interpreted for the northern zone, where bone and wooden objects may have been made, and dry hide and nettles were processed.
When analysing these patterns, Jessica offers the caveat that the tools represent only the final phase of movement or activity before they were deposited. We cannot know that they were definitely used where they were ultimately found – but the patterns observed within the eastern structure do seem persuasive. Due to the time-consuming nature of microwear analysis, the flints examined during this study only represent a sample of the nearly 2,000 such finds from the structure’s footprint, but this makes it even more striking that we can identify patterns in how activities were organised, even where the flint density is so high. They allow us to explore intriguing questions about why these patterns may have arisen; why people living over 10,000 years ago might have chosen to repeatedly undertake particular activities in particular places; and what this might tell us about the Star Carr community, and the lives of the people beside the lake.
In interpreting her results, Jessica is eager not to project modern expectations on to the structures or their inhabitants – ‘it is easy to look at a structure and interpret it as a house, a home, but that is quite a loaded term, and it is important to allow the archaeological evidence to speak for itself’, she said. Studies of Mesolithic settlement remains and how structures were used and organised often use ethnographic data and social psychology to explore the dynamics of these spaces. However, accepted narratives in this field sometimes tend towards gendered interpretation, Jessica suggests, with hunting tools often taken to represent areas occupied by men and their activities, while tasks relating to cooking or making clothing are assumed to denote female areas.
The flint tools from Star Carr were created and used by individuals, and by teasing out traces of the activities that they were used for, we can put humans back into the picture. Settlements were built and used not by individuals, but by communities – and, Jessica notes, while it is tempting to imagine a family unit living and working at Star Carr, we simply cannot know how these groups were organised or the gender or social roles of their members. But if we are able to look beyond trying to find evidence of gendered divisions of labour through the function of Mesolithic structures, we can explore – Jessica explained – more dynamic interpretations of how Mesolithic people worked together to construct and use dwellings.
Taking this more open perspective allows us to push the boundaries of our interpretations, and to explore questions about community, collaboration, and communal understandings of how things should be done. For example, if butchery/wet hide-working and bone-working/dry hide-working/woodworking were deliberately carried out in different parts of the eastern structure, might this be purely practical in purpose, segregating the ‘messy’ activities from cleaner crafts? Or might this zoning instead reflect specific social norms, cultural practices, or the community’s ideas of acceptable ways to do things?
‘Just as Kevin Kay noted in his study of Neolithic houses at Çatalhöyük (which was published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal in 2020), Mesolithic dwellings are more than proxies for social units,’ Jessica said. ‘They represent new avenues to explore the ways that space was organised, and how individuals interacted within them.’
Further information:
• J Bates, N Milner, C Conneller, and A Little (2024) ‘Spatial organisation within the earliest evidence of post-built structures in Britain’, PLOS ONE 19(7), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306908 (open access).
• An exhibition exploring Mesolithic life at Star Carr, featuring many of the finds from the site, is running at the Yorkshire Museum in York until spring 2026; see www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/exhibition/star-carr-life-after-the-ice for more details.
All images: © 2024 Bates et al, CC BY 4.0, unless otherwise stated
