Abstract Whilst metamorphosis might not be considered a conventional or common focus for Mesolithic research, technologies of metamorphosis do feature within narratives of the period, in a range of different contexts. This chapter explores research centred on Mesolithic material culture: masks, clothing, and artwork, and the potential that this holds for redefining our understandings of disguise, concealment, and transformation within Mesolithic ontologies. Context emerges as the key to both determining and realizing this potential. Mortuary practice and burial environments help to frame the different forms of life/death transformation, often involving materials that also occur in prosaic settings. Conversely, human remains transformed into material culture, and subsequently deposited in line with traditions of object disposal, illustrate the transformation of people into things. Broader patterns of consumption and predation shape the role that animal body parts play in therianthropic transformation and the making of material culture. In all these examples, an attention to the specifics of human action in the production and use of materials involved within metamorphosis are key in understanding the character of change, and the broader ontological framework within which this change sits.

Highlights: investigating pyrogenic magnetism can support identifying Mesolithic land use traces, laboratory magnetometers can facilitate soil characterisation for archaeological applications

The Mesolithic has been characterised as temporally homogeneous: a period of stagnation or degeneration with hunter-gatherers focused on routine economic practices in an endlessly repeating seasonal round. Characterisation of the Mesolithic as timeless and unchanging derives in part from our current poor internal chronological resolution, which appears even more acute given the recent ground-breaking advances for chronological precision in adjacent time periods. However, these tendencies are exacerbated by a focus in Mesolithic studies on an outdated and simplified bipartite typological framework for the period, linked to a small number of well-preserved sites that come to stand for human lifeways across millennia. These approaches produce a peculiar temporal model within Mesolithic studies. We argue that we need both more accurate and precise chronologies, and narrative approaches that write stories of these people in their own emergent and uncertain times. To begin to do so, this paper presents a new chronological framework for British Mesolithic assemblages, based on collation, audit, and Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon measurements associated with particular microlith forms. With this new approach, we outline different understandings of temporality and inhabitation for the period c. 9800–3600 cal bc .

The chronological and typological frameworks used to describe the Mesolithic of Ireland and of Britain have developed along divergent paths. This has encouraged scholars to treat the areas as distinctive—especially in the Irish context, where changes within the Mesolithic are often understood as insular, sui generis developments. On the basis of two independent reviews of the chronologies of the Mesolithic in Britain (Conneller and colleagues) and Ireland (Warren and colleagues), we highlight considerable similarities between the areas—not least in social processes driving material changes. On this basis we propose aligning the terminology used for the Mesolithic across these islands

This paper explores tool-using activities undertaken in and around the earliest known evidence of post-built structures in Britain. Microwear results associated with at least three structures identified at the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr, North Yorkshire, are examined as a means of identifying activity zones associated with the diverse stone tools used to process a variety of materials (e.g. wood, bone, antler, plant, hide, meat, fish). With 341 lithic artefacts analysed, this research represents the first microwear study focused on the post-built structures at Star Carr. A combination of spatial and microwear data has provided different scales of interpretation: from individual tool use to patterns of activity across the three structures. Different types of tool use observed have aided interpretations of possible activity areas where objects were produced and materials were processed. Zones of activity within one of the structures suggest that the working of some materials was more spatially restricted than others; even where there are high densities of flint deposition, spatial patterns in tool-using activity were observed. From this, it is interpreted that social norms and behaviours influenced the spatial organisation of different spaces. Our results demonstrate the importance of combining microwear analysis with GIS to explore function and variability in the use of Mesolithic structures—providing new insights into their role as social spaces.

Long-term monitoring along the Irish Sea coast of Britain at Formby has identified hundreds of animal and human footprints in 31 discrete sediment beds. A new programme of radiocarbon dating shows that the Formby footprints span at least 8,000 years of the Holocene Epoch from the Mesolithic period to Medieval times. In a landscape largely devoid of conventional archaeology and faunal records, we show how species data from the footprint stratigraphy document long-term change in both large mammal diversity and human behaviour. The footprint beds record shifting community structure in the native fauna through an era of profound global change. As sea levels rose rapidly in the Early Holocene, men, women and children formed part of rich Mesolithic intertidal ecosystems from ~9,000 to 6,000 cal bp , with aurochs, red deer, roe deer, wild boar, beaver, wolf and lynx. Doggerland was reclaimed by the sea in this period. In the agriculture-based societies that followed, after 5,500 cal bp human footprints dominate the Neolithic period and later beds, alongside a striking fall in large mammal species richness. Stacked footprint beds can form multimillennial records of ecosystem change with precise geographical context that cannot be retrieved from site-based fossil bone assemblages.

Two Palaeolithic genomes from Britain provide the oldest currently available genetic data from the region and appear to map on to wider European patterns of genetic ancestry and associated archaeology. However, with sparse samples and wide temporal gaps between them, it might be premature to draw wider conclusions about the consistency of these patterns.

The form and macroscopic wear of Mesolithic awls has been used to infer function, which has become an aspect of established typologies. However, verification of form/function relationships are needed to ensure typologies are robust. This paper presents the results of GIS and microwear analysis of 54 flint awls excavated from the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr, UK, in conjunction with results from experimental research on awl use. Results expand on previous findings that awls were used for a range of activities at Star Carr, reflected in the different worked contact materials identified; including mineral, wood, bone, and hide. The experimental programme provided important insights into macroscopic tip modification of awls working with different contact materials for different lengths of time. Rates of tip snapping were found to be high in the Star Carr sample. GIS plots of awl location integrated alongside the microwear results show that the majority of awls were recovered from the west of the site, with clusters composed of different contact materials. The proximity of hide and shale working may suggest the production of clothing with appliqué beads. The combination of microwear, experimental archaeology, and GIS is applicable to other Mesolithic sites and holds potential to expand our knowledge of the spatial structuring of tool-using behaviours. Moreover, combined use of these methods has enabled greater understanding of awl typologies: providing a means to independently assess the relationship between tool morphology and use.

Some time during the 94th century BC, the first Mesolithic groups arrived in Britain. They moved into a landscape that was probably empty of people, deserted by the last Upper Palaeolithic groups during an Early Holocene cold snap. In the lowland areas that the first pioneers favoured, this was a landscape of water. In the north, large lakes, created by glacial meltwater and fringed with reeds and rushes, attracted flocks of migratory birds. In the south, people moved into Britain along the river systems, camping on gravel islands and terraces rising above the floodplains. The vast majority of Star Carr-type sites are in Northern England, clustered in particular in the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire. Star Carr has come to dominate discussions of the British Early Mesolithic.

The application of clay to the heads of deceased hunter-gatherers within the Middle Neolithic burials of Finland and Latvia was originally identified by researchers working in these regions during the 20th century. This practice stands apart from the deeper-seated traditions of grave adornment which characterise the hunter-gatherer archaeology of the Baltic region during the Middle Holocene. However, the variable extent to which these 'death masks' are preserved and recorded has confounded attempts to discuss their meaning or significance in detail. This paper approaches the problem through a discussion of the materials involved in masking, rather than the forms represented by the masks themselves. Through this discussion, an understanding of the relationship between material ontology and cosmology emerges, which is subsequently situated within a socio-historical context through a review of the available radiocarbon dates and broader patterns of social change in the Middle Neolithic archaeology of the Eastern Baltic.

Star Carr is a world renowned site first excavated in the late 1940s by Grahame Clark.These excavations revealed organic remains which are incredibly rare, though there are some parallels with sites in Germany and Denmark.The evidence from Star Carr has been debated over the decades, but in 2004 new excavations commenced with the aim of answering some of the questions which had been posed about this important Mesolithic site.One of the alarming discoveries was that the site had deteriorated badly.However, some organic materials remained, though in a very fragile condition.Some of the most spectacular of these are large wooden platforms which had been constructed on what would have been the margins of the lake.In addition, 'house' structures were discovered for the first time on the dry land.With a scientific programme including Bayesian modelling and environmental sampling it has been possible for the first time to construct a picture of life in the Mesolithic at Star Carr through time (Milner et al. 2018a; b).

We are all now aware of masks and their affects. In the last 18 months, they have proliferated and in doing so replicated most of the major tropes of material culture studies. In Europe and the US ...

The Upper Palaeolithic is characterised by the appearance of iconographic expressions most often depicting animals, including anthropomorphic forms, and geometric signs. The Late Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian saw a flourishing of such depictions, encompassing cave art, engraving of stone, bone and antler blanks and decoration of tools and weapons. Though Magdalenian settlement exists as far northwest as Britain, there is a limited range of art known from this region, possibly associated with only fleeting occupation of Britain during this period. Stone plaquettes, flat fragments of stone engraved on at least one surface, have been found in large quantities at numerous sites spanning the temporal and geographical spread of the Magdalenian, but they have been absent so far from the archaeological record of the British Isles. Between 2015 and 2018, ten fragments of stone plaquettes extensively engraved with abstract designs were uncovered at the Magdalenian site of Les Varines, Jersey, Channel Islands. In this paper, we report detailed analyses of these finds, which provide new evidence for technologies of abstract mark-making, and their significance within the lives of people on the edge of the Magdalenian world. These engraved stone fragments represent important, rare evidence of artistic expression in what is the far northern and western range of the Magdalenian and add new insight to the wider significance of dynamic practices of artistic expression during the Upper Palaeolithic.

Please note: due to the size and quality of these volumes, the ebook files are very large. Users downloading to mobile devices, or with an internet connection with limited bandwidth, should view and download chapters individually from the dropdown menu below. Star Carr is one of the most important Mesolithic sites in Europe. It was discovered in the late 1940s by John Moore and then excavated by Grahame Clark from 1949-1951, becoming famous in the archaeological world for the wealth of rare organic remains uncovered including barbed antler points and antler headdresses. However, since the original excavations there has been much debate about how the site was used: was it a residential base camp, a hunting camp or even a ritual site? From 2003-2015, excavations directed by Conneller, Milner and Taylor aimed to answer these questions. This work has demonstrated that the site is much larger and more complex than ever imagined and was in use for around 800 years. The excavations show that Mesolithic groups were highly invested in this place: there is evidence for a number of structures on the dryland (the oldest evidence for ‘houses’ in Britain), three large wooden platforms along the edge of the lake, and the deposition of rare artefacts into the lake edge, including more antler headdresses and a unique, engraved shale pendant. People continued to occupy the site despite changes in climate over this period. The main results of our work are contained in two volumes: the first provides an interpretation of the site, and the second provides detail on specific areas of research. The main results of our work are contained in two volumes: the first volume provides an interpretation of the site, and the second volume provides detail on specific areas of research. Further information on the order process