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Hides and Antlers: A New Look at the Gatherer-Hunter Site at Star Carr, North Yorkshire, England Author(s): Mike Pitts Source: World Archaeology, Vol. 11, No. 1, Early Chemical Technology (Jun., 1979), pp. 32-42 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/124333 Accessed: 23-01-2016 14:50 UTC

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Hides and antlers: a new look at the gatherer- hunter site at Star Carr, North Yorkshire, England

Mike Pitts

The gatherer-hunter site at Star Carr in North Yorkshire was excavated over three seasons between I949 and 1951 and published in a now classic monograph (Clark i954). The lithic industry recovered suggested affinities with the Maglemosean or Early Mesolithic of northern Europe, and radiocarbon determinations date the site to the mid-eighth millennium b.c. Of even greater interest than the exceptional flint assemblage were the associated organic remains preserved by the waterlogged conditions of the carr. In addition to a substantial floor of untrimmed branches, these ncluded rolls of birch bark, a wooden 'paddle' and numerous animal bones, amongst which the antler in particular indicated considerable industrial activity. The excavator and his colleagues argued that the faunal remains testified to a concentration of activity over the winter and spring, and thus the case for seasonal movement of human groups at the time was set on a seemingly sure footing. This paper discusses the nature of the site and the

assemblage recovered and offers an alternative interpretation.

Most of the excavated remains from Star Carr come from within what was then a reed

swamp fringing a lake: 'the settlement was placed as near as could be to the water's edge' (Clark I954: 12). Much has been made of the low altitude location of the site in contrast with broadly contemporary sites at high elevations (Clark I972; Mellars 1976) but the

explanations offered do not demand such an explicitly aqueous environment (fig. i), particularly for a supposedly winter encampment at a time of greater seasonal contrasts in climate than those of today.

The possibility that the watery environment, as well as preserving such a rich

assemblage, actually determined the nature of the material deposited in the first place, does not seem to have been considered. However, the case for this is strong. Of all the activities conducted in the excavated area, by far the most prominent in the artefactual record is the processing of red deer antler into barbed points. The large quantity of flint end scrapers suggests that another major concern was the treatment of animal hides. The following quotations from Hodges (I976) offer a ready explanation for the lakeside provenience of the tools and debris associated with both of these processes:

Although shed antlers are hard, and those cut from the freshly slaughtered beast rapidly become so, the material can be temporarily softened by soaking in water (p. 155).

World Archaeology Volume Iz No. i Early chemical technology

? R.K.P. I979 0043-8243/ IO1101- 3 $1.501/

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Hides and antlers: a new look at gatherer-hunter site at Star Carr, North Yorkshire 33

Antlers . . .could be made relatively soft by prolonged soaking in water, after which its carving became a comparatively simple matter (p. 154).

The first stage in the preparation of skins, or hides as they are generally known once taken from the carcass, must be the removal of the subcutaneous fatty layer. ... This is generally done by scraping the fat away, and many of the stone tools of early man seem excellently suited to this purpose .... The process of scudding could be made simpler by soaking the hide in water, followed by a thorough pounding, but this could only be done if the hair was ultimately to be removed from the hide (p. 148).

The thesis of this paper, then, is that what was excavated at Star Carr was not a total settlement, but a specialized industrial complex. This would explain why the timber

L500 m .:

Figure I Showing the location of the Star Carr site on the end of a promontory jutting out into the old Lake Pickering (after Walker and Godwin 1954)

'platform', consisting of untrimmed birch branches 'thrown down directly on the reedswamp', showed no structural sophistication of the kind one might expect of a habitation in such surroundings: 'although the closest watch was maintained, no trace of piles or vertical structure was encountered' (all quotations from Clark I954: 2). That a settlement was present nearby, presumably on drier land, is indicated by apparently domestic rubbish (including bones of animals that were not used as raw material), which must have been thrown aside into the water. Furthermore, at least five of the seven patches of charcoal discovered were located in the swamp (Clark 1954: fig. 7): clearly these cannot represent in situ hearths.

This interpretation of the excavated area at Star Carr as an industrial zone can be tested by an examination of the lithic assemblage from the site, which should be biased towards tools associated with antler and hide processing. A table of tool frequencies for British Mesolithic sites compiled by Mellars (I976: table 2) provided a convenient data set for this exercise. Mellars lists the percentages for what he calls the 'essential' tool inventory, consisting of microliths, scrapers, burins, celts and saws. Sites with tool counts of less than thirty were omitted in the analysis presented here, as well as those labelled by Mellars as deriving from surface collections, and Freshwater West, whose

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labelled by Mellars as deiving from surface collections, and Freshwatei- West, whose

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34 Mike Pitts

Mesolithic status is questionable. The remaining thirty-three were numbered con- secutively according to Mellars' (alphabetical) order, with Star Carr emerging as number

27. A Principal Co-ordinates analysis was then carried out (see end note for details). This enabled the data to be compressed into a single diagram (fig. 2).

Assemblages on the left of the scattergram have large quantities of microliths while those on the right are dominated by scrapers. The vertical axis appears to be an indication of the number of burins. The lines emanating from each point are an attempt to include a third dimension on the diagram, largely representing the quantity of saws in each

assemblage. The higher the score -positive scores represented by a line to the right, negative to the left - the more saws are present. Celts are so rare on every site as to contribute nothing to the general patterno

From this we can see that site 27 has more scrapers than most other Mesolithic

assemblages, and particularly more burins, a tool which otherwise shows little site to site variation in relative frequency of occurrence. It should also be noted that what Clark called 'awls', a tool rarely found outside Star Carr and not included by Mellars in his figures, comprised about 10 per cent of all the implements from this site (Clark 1954: 96). It is hard to think how morphological analysis of a lithic assemblage could point more directly to hide and antler working.

Another way in which the Star Carr assemblage differs from that of other sites is evident in the material used to fashion barbed points. Clark (1954: i8i) observed that the emphasis on antler for the manufacture of these points at Star Carr was in contrast to the almost exclusive use of bone in other Maglemosean contexts in Europe. Recent additions to the finds of uniserially barbed points from Britain emphasize this distinctive characteristic of Star Carr (data from Hallam et al. 1973 and Wymer et al. 1975):

barbed points bone antler

Star Carr 2 187 14 other sites i6 5

Such an imbalance fits well the thesis that one of the major specialized activities at the site was the manufacture of points made from antler.

Large quantities of waste products leave no doubt that red deer antler was worked within the excavated area. However, site conditions were inimical to the survival of animal skin (Clark 1972: 31) so that there is no direct evidence for hide processing. Hitherto, arguments for this activity have depended on inference from the flint scrapers, regarded, by analogy with modern examples, as skin working tools. However, the case is considerably strengthened when the requirements for successful hide treatment are considered beside the site environment.

I have suggested that one reason for the lakeside location of the site was the require- ments of antler working. For skin processing the presence of water is still more com- pelling: 'without easy access to water the tanner cannot exercise his craft' (Reed 1972: 46). In modern leather production, a hide passes through several distinct stages of treatment, variously involving softening, hair and flesh removal and tanning. If necessary, however, all of these activities can be combined. 'The earliest workers with skin were able to achieve excellent hair removal and also prepare the ders for further treatments,

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-o16

280--

--o10 14 2 -ol 26o 7 -0-o1247 --024

-07 -o30

--031

-033

8o

-.o015 190 --05 20 --023 220-- -' .

'

Figure 2 Principal Co-ordinates scattergram of Mesolithic flint tool assemblages from Britain. The first three co-ordinates account for

91 per cent, 6-5 per cent and z per cent of the total variance, respectively (see text and end note). Data from Mellars (I976)

9 e21 29

-025 13 -o6

32- --o 11

1- -.-. - -1 . .....- -- I - -. - I --U I - - -I ~ -

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36 Mike Pitts

not in distinct and deliberately controlled stages, but in one and the same operation. Thus soaking, loosening, plumping of the fibre network and even tannage were possible simultaneously, using liquors which were prepared quite simply' (Reed 1972: 53; original author's italics). A suitable liquor would be a decaying or fermenting bath of plant material, in which enzyme action would loosen the hair and prepare the skin for tannage by removing the ground substance from the epidermal-dermal junction and from between the hide fibres. All plants contain vegetable tannins so that apart from the

enzymic loosening effects, some slight degree of simultaneous vegetable tannage would occur. One of the simplest ways of creating such a bath would be to dump quantities of vegetable matter into a natural body of water, preferably shallow and still or slow

moving. And at this point we can return to the site at Star CarrO

Amongst the plants of which actual pieces were identified from the mud of the site, are twenty-two dry land species - slightly more than the number of reedswamp and mire plants - with birch wood (Betula pubescens) greatly predominating. A reasonable

interpretation of this material is that it was gathered together and deposited in the

margin of the lake to form a bath of rotting vegetable matter of the kind described above. The birch branches and the single complete tree would serve to contain the other plants in the still waters of the marsh, as well as providing a convenient working support and a frame from which to suspend soaking hides and antler. The mosses

(Eurynchium myosuroides and Camptothecium sericenum) and the bracket fungus (Fomes fomentarius), all apparently deliberately gathered (Clark 1954: I8), could have been added to the bath to improve the supply of enzymes (Reed, pers. comm.). The large amount of birch wood, still retaining its bark, is highly significant for the tanning properties of the solution, for birch bark has a long history of use in northern Europe as a tanning agent (Howes 1953: IIz). Whether the numerous rolls of birch bark recovered from the site played a role in the tanning process depends on the bark thickness, as the tannins are contained in the inner bark. If, as seems likely, the rolls consist only of outer bark, then their contribution in this respect would have been slight. However, if the bark were taken from trees which were in the bath, this action would facilitate the flow of tannins from the inner bark, thus improving the strength of the liquor.

These arguments reinforce Clark's suggestion that skin working was taking place at Star Carr. By considering the process in detail, however, we arrive at a conclusion that upsets the traditional idea that the site was abandoned in the summer. Fermenting baths (essentially enzymic in their action) function effectively only between io?C and 37?C, since enzyme action is a function of temperature. Thus in cold weather or whenever the lake-bath froze solid, skin working would be greatly hindered, becoming very slow to yield results (Reed, pers. comm.). According to figures assembled by Taylor (1975) the air temperature at Star Carr would have ranged from around -5? to - 3?C in the

winter, to Ix5? to 13'5?C in the summer. It is clear that successful skin processing could only occur in the summer. There are other factors that would favour this activity then. The aqueous processing environment, which would remove hair, implies that de- haired hides were required. It would thus be logical to obtain skins after the animals had shed their winter coats in the late spring. The removal of the subcutaneous fat would also be a less time consuming task following the loss of the extra winter deposits. Relevant here is E. J. H. Corner's suggestion (in Clark 1950: 124) that the bracket

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Hides and antlers: a new look at gatherer-hunter site at Star Carr, North Yorkshire 37

fungus was collected in summer or autumn: as we saw above, this fungus could have been deliberately added to the fermenting bath to increase the enzyme action.

An interesting parallel to Star Carr appears to exist in the roughly contemporary site at Dozmary Pool in Cornwall (Jacobi, pers. comm.). It was discovered in i866, when extreme drought caused the lake to shrink and expose a Maglemosean activity area on its edge. Unfortunately no organic remains were saved, but quantities of flint tools survive in museum collections. Exceptionally high numbers of scrapers (50 per: cent of all retouched implents or two-thirds of Mellars' 'essential' tools) suggest that Dozmary Pool was a hide processing complex similar to that excavated at Star Carr. Also present in the collection of 299 pieces are four awls of the kind found at Star Carr. In conclusion, it can be observed that the Yorkshire skin working installation provides probably one of the oldest cases of vegetable preparation and tannage of hides documented.

There has been a tendency to treat the excavated area at Star Carr as an entire settlement, and the finds as representative of the full range of activities practised by a social unit. Red deer (Cervus elaphus) always figure prominently in discussions of the site. Fraser and King argued that the red deer bones testified to occupation some time between October and April (when the animals with unshed antlers would have been

locally available) and in or about April, when the shed antlers must have been collected, 'as there is evidence that the antlers are eaten within a fairly short time of having been shed' (Fraser and King 1954: 93-5). Clark and Jarman have pointed to a considerably higher representation of male deer than would occur in natural herds, a feature, they suggest, indicating controlled culling (Clark I972: 29; Jarman I972: 131). Clark has also referred to this sex ratio imbalance in support of the winter occupation hypothesis. Quoting Darling, he notes that adult stags are separated from the hinds and immature animals, when they congregate in winter 'yards'. The 'great predominance of adult stags over hinds and young deer' can thus 'only mean that the Star Carr hunters were culling stags during the winter months' (Clark, op. cit.).

These arguments are based essentially on the deer antler. However, two important points do not seem to have been considered: the fact that only male deer sport antler, and the abundant evidence that probably all of this antler on the site was deliberately collected for industrial purposes or consisted of discarded artefacts. There is no reason why this material could not have been gathered and saved at any time of year and at any distance from the site. Indeed, indications are that at least some of the antler was treated to lighten and ge;erally facilitate carrying it, by breaking it up and removing unwanted portions (Clark :r954: II6 and plate VIII, A.89; Fraser and King 1954: 80). Fraser and King's point about the deer eating their antler seems to have been negated by recent work showing that it is generally only when existing on an impoverished diet that they take to ingesting their antler (Kjos-Hanssen 1973). The evidence suggests that feeding conditions at Star Carr were more than adequate (Clark 1954: 15; I972: 27).

The same comments apply to the less numerous antlers of elk (Alces alces), eight of which Fraser and King claimed as further evidence for winter occupation (I954: 92). Of the fifteeal loose elk antlers, at least ten are artefacts, including some distinctive mattock heads whose production, Clark noted (1954: 157), involved considerable work.

We have already seen that the postulated hide-working would mean activity at Star

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38 Mike Pitts

Carr during the summer. Clearly the elk and red deer antler cannot be used as evidence of seasonal occupation, but there still remain a number of faunal indicators, which are summarized in fig. 3. In this, the bars indicate periods during which the animals whose bones are listed above could have been obtained from the site territory.

Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb.

2

I 4

I: pair of roe antlers in velvet (Fraser and King in Clark I95o: 125) 2: 4 red deer crania with shed antlers (Fraser and King 1954: 8o) 3: elk and red deer calf bones (Noe-Nygaard 1975) 4: 8 roe crania with antlers (Fraser and King 1954: 75) 5: healed lesions on elk and red deer scapulae (Noe-Nygaard 1975) 6: 2 elk crania with shed antlers (Fraser and King 1954: 75)

Figure 3 Summarizing the evidence for seasonal activity at Star Carr provided by the animal remains

Given the crude estimate for each of the periods featured, it is clear that the evidence does not strongly imply occupation at one part of the year rather than another, but instead suggests the possibility of a more or less continuous human presence. On the other hand, Walker and Godwin's observations (1954: 58) that 'mud accumulated directly above the platform from reedswamp actually growing on and around it', apparently before the deposition of the latest artefacts, could indicate a break in activity of greater duration than one or two seasons. Clark's 'signs -- notably the existence of spreads of charcoal separated by organic mud - that the site was abandoned and re- occupied at least once' (Clark 1954: 9) might be similarly interpreted. However, this is a very different thing from seasonal desertion.

Similarly, removal of red deer antlers from considerations of herd exploitation and manipulation leads to conclusions that differ radically from those arrived at by Clark and Jarman. The difference antler can make to such statistics is well illustrated by the material from the Chalcolithic site of Durrington Walls in Wiltshire, where antler picks were recovered in their hundreds. The minimum number of red deer indicated by bones other than antler was a mere five (Harcourt 1971). If the loose antlers and worked frontlets at Starr Carr are omitted, only six sexed crania, two female and four male (Fraser and King 1954: 8o) are represented on the site. Even if deliberate antler collection is ignored, the shed antlers (41 of a total of Io6) can hardly be included in counts of animals killed.

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Hides and antlers: a new look at gatherer-hunter site at Star Carr, North Yorkshire

50- meat Bos Cervus Alces Capreolus Sus .: weight

40- m minimum Xiti.ii [Xn number of

11111 ? 'ii~i~~i~~-- animals

iiiI?11iii. . 20-

i!:ii!iii .......... 3i~::~?: ~ 10-

Figure 4 Chief game animals represented in the bone assemblage from Star Carr, recalculated to allow for industrial use of antler (see text)

Accordingly, the proportions of the chief game animals at Star Carr were recalculated from the figures given by Fraser and King (1954: 79-86). The result (fig. 4) removes red deer from its previously dominant position. By minimum numbers of animals, Cervus takes second place to roe deer, and by meat weight to the urus (Bos primigenius). Thus the precarious dependence on a single main animal (Clark 1972; Mellars 1976) is replaced by a more balanced schedule in which no single species provides as much as half of the meat requirement.

These reworked figures suggest that more roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) were killed (or at least brought to the site) than any other species (all roe deer antler was unshed). There were 'no indications that the bones were put to any applied purpose' (Fraser and King I954: 91). There is thus no obvious reason for excluding the antlers of these animals from comparative calculations. Nevertheless, it is striking that omitting the antlers reduces the minimum number of animals by more than a quarter (from 33 to 24: figures calculated from data given by Fraser and King I954: 75). It is also notable that there exists an even greater sex imbalance than that observed for the red deer: thirty-two males to one female. Taken literally these figures suggest a strong predilection for the killing of males. However, the possibility remains that as with the elk and red deer, the possession of antlers by the male roe deer prohibits simplistic interpretation.

The drawing of attention away from red deer can be taken further by re-emphasizing the potential role of plant foods (Clarke 1976). Clark listed a large number of plants with edible parts found on the site, most of great nutritional value (Clark 1954: I4; Clark 1972: 25-6). To these can be added the tubers of Nymphaea alba, the leaves of Epilobium, Polygonum bistorta and Crataegus monogyna, and the berries of Crataegus and Empetrum nigrum (Empetrum sp. at Star Carr) (Mabey 1972). Gibbons (1966: 279) has emphasized the value of Chenopodium album as one of the richest vegetable sources of calcium, as well as an important source of vitamins A and C. Rumex crispus (Rumex sp. at Star Carr) is also rich in vitamin A (Gibbons: 23I). Finally, Linnaeus recorded in the early i8th century that the Lapps largely subsisted on the inner bark of Pinus

39

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40 Mike Pitts

sylvestris, which they gathered in spring, and fed, dried, to animals or ground for bread (Gibbons: 117). Mellars (1976: 375-6) has recently echoed Clark's statement of the potential of plant food, but having described the difficulties of recognizing the ex- ploitation of plants in the archaeological record, he proceeds to think in terms of an economy heavily biased towards large game animals. Perhaps the time has come to progress beyond a token recognition of plants in the Mesolithic econorly.

If it is accepted that the excavated remains from Star Carr derive trom a specialized activity zone within a larger settlement, then we have to admit that we are ill-equipped to attempt a detailed interpretation of the complete site. Matters such as season and duration of occupation or group size and composition cannot be demonstrated by analysis of the archaeological data in a vacuum. Neither can we itemize the full comple- ment of craft undertakings, when we have evidence only for those necessarily conducted in or near winter. The faunal statistics are difficult to handle. We can clearly recognize some categories of animal bones that were deliberately collected at the time of occupation, and these can be omitted from calculations aimed at estimating the nature of the animal contribution to the group's diet. Figure 4 was compiled in this way. But what does this really tell us? We do not know which animals were eaten,d or which parts of these, any more than we know what was made of the non-edible parts - hair, hides, fat and so on. Floral statistics are even harder to come by. We can list the potentially valuable plants around the site, but we do not know which were used or for what. In sum, what we know to be a biased sample makes detailed interpretation, always a hazardous exercise, nigh impossible.

We can, however, attempt a general model. The evidence summarized in fig. 3 suggests that there was activity at the site throughout the year. However, this is not to say that the same group of people were always present. There is undeniably much in Clark's interpretation that is eminently sensible, particularly his suggestion that certain upland sites can be seen as summer camps in a mobile economic schedule. However, the case for a 'Star Carr band', of a constant size and composition, seems weak. Gamble (i978) has recently summarized the arguments for distinguishing between generalized and specialized environments, and the different gatherer-hunter strategies that these two systems support. In a generalized environment, with evenly distributed resources of a stable and predictable nature, small human groups can exist in a dispersed. settlement pattern. In a specialized environment, however, unpredictable and locally available resources demand larger population aggregates and a nucleated settlement pattern. It seems reasonable to characterize the contemporary environment around Star Carr as specialized in the winter, when the main edible resources would have been provided by stored plant and animal foods and herds of animals wintering in the lowlands, and generalized in the summer, with a great variety of fresh plant foods available and animals dispersed over wide areas in the uplands. The model described by Gamble, would, then predict a large settlement in the lowlands in the winter, with the group splitting up and dispersing as summer approached. There would be no necessity for complete abandonment of the winter settlement. Indeed, the evidence suggests that a small group remained to engage in specialized industrial activities. This, then, is how we would interpret Star Carr.

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Hides and antlers: a new look at gatherer-hunter site at Star Carr, North Yorkshire 41

Acknowledgements, with a note on the computer analysis

The Principal Co-ordinates analysis (Gower I966) referred to in the text was conducted from a Euclidean distance matrix of the sites described by the occurrence of the various tool classes expressed as percentages. The program was written by F. R. Hodson, to whom thanks are due. The author would be pleased to provide further details of the analysis on request.

I would also like to thank Clive Gamble, Hilary Howard and Roger Jacobi, who read through earlier drafts of the paper and offered many helpful comments; and Dr R. Reed for his enlightening suggestions about the skin working. Naturally, I take responsibility for the article's content. The thesis of this paper was originally presented at an under- graduate seminar at the Institute of Archaeology, London, in I974.

15.xi. I978 Institute of Archaeology London

References

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Clark, J. G. D. 954 Excavations at Star Carr. Cambridge.

Clark, J. G. D. 1972. Star Carr: a case study in bioarchaeology. Addison-Wesley Modular Publications 1o.

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Fraser, F. C. and King, J. E. I954. Faunal remains. In J. G. D. Clark, Excavations at Starr Carr, 70-95. Cambridge.

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Howes, F. N. 1953. Vegetable Tanning Materials. London.

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Abstract

Pitts, M. W.

Hides and antlers: a new look at the gatherer-hunter site at Star Carr, North

Yorkshire, England In an attempt to explain the lakeside situation of the well-known gatherer-hunter site at Star Carr, the finds from the excavations are reconsidered. It is suggested that the exposed area was a specialized industrial activity zone, where the working of deer antler and the processing of animal hides were carried out. The case is presented for the use of a fermenting bath of

vegetable matter, in which the soaking, loosening, plumping of the fibre network and tannage of skins were carried out simultaneously. If this thesis is correct, Star Carr documents the oldest known case of this practice, implying a sophisticated practical experience of natural chemicals. In conclusion, the implications of this new interpretation are incorporated in a model of the economic schedule of the site's inhabitants.

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