Peopling the Mesolithic in a

N orthem Environment
Edited by
Lynne Bevan and Jenny Moore
BAR International Series 1157
2003
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Peopling the Mesolithic in a Northern Environment
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3
STAG NIGHTS AND HORNY MEN:
ANTLER SYMBOLISM AND INTERACTION WITH THE
ANIMAL WORLD DURING THE MESOLITHIC
Lynne Bevan
'Moose hunting used to take two guys '" They'd go out this time of year, hang around a lake. One of the guys
wouldfake afemale moose call on an old birchbark horn. Then when they were sure the bull was interested the
other guy would get out a little dipper and start pouring water into the lake ... That was to simulate the sound of
afemale urinating. Apparently that was what really got the bulls going. Then when he came charging from the
woods they'd drive him into the shallow water and spear him there. Pretty smart, eh? '.
From the novel Hunting Down Home by Jean McNeil (1996, 51)
Introduction
D
uring later European prehistory, one of the
earliest representations of the Iron Age homed
god Cernunnos is believed to occur in the rock art of
Valcamonica in northern Italy (Green 1999). The
early church attempted to suppress the widespread
worship of this potent figure, which involved
worshippers dressing up using animal horns and
antlers, apparently to encourage and celebrate
concepts offertility (Bord and Bord 1982, 214-215).
Worship of the homed god was punishable by death
during the genocide of the European witch trials
when the deity was re-styled as the devil, but he was
eventually reborn and repackaged in the iconography
of 20
th
. century paganism (e.g. Murray 1931).
Images of homed gods and men proliferate in recent
and modem popular culture, recurring in diverse
spatial and chronological contexts. Their underlying
meanings can be many and varied, resulting from
very different and culture-specific magico-religious
concepts and beliefs. In a general sense this paper
explores potential reasons for human interest in hom
and antler symbolism. More specifically, by drawing
upon ethnographic studies of the spiritual lives of
some past and recent northern hunting groups, it
explores possible reasons for the curation and
contextual placement of certain animal body parts
during the British Mesolithic and what this might
reveal about relationships between Mesolithic people
and animals. It is also concerned with gender issues
and with the symbiotic relationship, both in practical
terms and also symbolically and ideologically,
between Mesolithic communities and animals,
principally deer. Study will concentrate upon
contextual evidence for the use of perforated antler
frontlets at Star Carr, North Yorkshire.
35
Star Carr
That the antlers from Star Carr were still attached to
the skulls, indicating that they were taken between
November and April, was one of the main reasons
that the site was originally interpreted by Clark as a
winter base camp (1972). It was later reinterpreted as
a spring/summer camp, and Richard Carter's recent
research on mandibular tooth development among
red deer suggests that many of the animals had
actually been killed during the winter months,
lending support to the original hypothesis (Carter
1997). The results of the recent excavations reported
on by Paul Mellars and Petra Dark (1998) suggest
that the use of the site and the immediate area was
much more complex than previously supposed, and
might have involved visits throughout the year rather
than only during a certain season. The main reason
for this is that the period of occupation has been
extended from the 25 years originally proposed by
Clark to 250-300 years, according to Mellars and
Dark (1998), which implies that the site was used 'as
a central aggregation point for early Mesolithic
groups from several adjacent areas of north-east
England' (ibid), perhaps even on a permanent basis
(Schadla-Hall pers. Comm. quoted by Spikins 1999,48).
The presence of 21 perforated antler frontlets at Star
Carr has always seemed to me to be one of the most
interesting aspects of the site and one that has never
been researched in any depth. In contrast with the
Palaeolithic, with its cave art and cult objects, and
with later prehistory, with monuments and structured
deposition, Mesolithic research has always focused
upon the economic basis of sites, seasonality and
flint typologies. While these are both important and
interlinked, they do not tell us a great deal about
social organisation and, more importantly for the
PEOPLING THE MESOLITHIC
purposes of this paper, about belief systems.
Recently the 21 Star Carr frontlets have been
described as 'ritual' paraphernalia (Working Party
for the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Annual Day
Meeting and the Council of the Prehistoric Society
1999). This is something of a departure from
previous interpretations which, although presenting
the possibility of a ritual usage, favoured a more
practical role in deer hunting. According to J G D
Clark, the frontlets were used 'either for stalking or
even decoying deer to bring them into the hunters'
range or they may have been worn in some ritual
dance or mime connected with ensuring the fertility
of deer (and possibly man) and with seeking to
enhance the confidence or solidarity of the
hunters' (1956, 18, my italics). He concluded that
'the general character of the site suggests that the
first alternative is more likely to be correct but
whether directly functional or whether magical in
intent, the masks reflect the overriding preoccupation
of the Star Carr people with hunting and in particular
with red deer' (ibid 18-19).
This 'either/or' argument effectively closed rather
than opened up any discussion of the head-dresses
and what they might actually have been used or
intended for. It also provides a good example of the
western division between what is perceived as
'spiritual' and what is perceived as 'secular', a
cultural construction which effectively precludes any
understanding of non-western or prehistoric belief
systems. This, combined with a strictly functionalist
approach to items of material culture and an
interpretative conservatism characteristic of the mid
20
th
century, which still occurs today, has precluded
any attempts to explore the potential religious/ritual
beliefs of the Star Carr people. The consternation
with which this and two other papers based upon the
frontlets was received during the TAG 99 session
which formed the basis of this volume (see papers by
Chatterton and Zvelebil) illustrated the fact that
many archaeologists are still reluctant to take the
discussion any further, especially when further
research involves studying the belief systems of
recent hunting cultures such as the Saami (formerly
called the Lapps) of north-western Scandinavia.
Obviously, in the same way that antler symbolism is
not universal, ethnographic research cannot provide
a universal 'answer'. However, it does raise some
interesting possibilities, which I make no apologies
for including here.
Antler as a material
Antlers are instruments of transformation. They
grow, are shed, and then almost miraculously regrow
for their most potent manifestation during the
36
autumn rut. As such, they might have been
considered a metaphor for death and rebirth by
Mesolithic peoples.
In addition to those at Star Carr, perforated frontlets
have been found on some German Mesolithic sites
(see Chatterton, this volume). It is known that the
frontlets were deliberately hollowed-out to reduce
bone weight and that they were then through-drilled
(for details of further reduction see Conneller, this
volume). From a practical point of view the frontlets
could easily have been adapted with this slight
modification into a head-dress, secured with strips of
leather or other binding material. As leather was not
preserved at Star Carr, it cannot be known whether
the head-dresses were worn in conjunction with a
mask (logically made from the skin of a deer's face),
or a deerskin cloak, or whether they were worn
alone. An important factor is whether the antlers
were all in use at the same time. The excavation
report does not make it clear, although in a section
drawing of Cutting II four deer frontlets appear to
have been found in a context above a recumbent
birch trunk which suggests some degree of
contemporaneity (Clark 1956, Fig. 2,3)
We know that barbed points, interpreted as
spearheads, were made from red deer 'stag' antler at
Star Carr (Fraser and King 1954, 123). Why was this
the most appropriate material? By comparison, elk
antlers were used for making two different types of
mattock head (Fraser and King 1954, 157), depending
upon whether or not the antlers had been shed (Clark
1956, 12). Shed red deer antler was also worked,
certainly in the most recent Star Carr assemblage
discussed by Peter Rowley-Conwy (1998), but did
the raw material used for spearheads have to come
from dead stags? The frontlet head-dresses certainly
did. Perhaps the significance of the antler as
spearhead material went beyond practical
considerations. Was it important that the antlers
came from dead animals, incorporating part of the
skull? Was it also important that the antler was taken
soon after the animal died, while perhaps still
retaining the essence of the deer?
Curation of body parts
It is known that the antlers came from red deer killed
and butchered elsewhere, and this would explain the
lack of vertebrae and pelvic bones, as opposed to
mandibles and scapulae, in the original faunal
assemblage. This curation of the antlers, which
might have been in circulation for a long time, is
interesting, as it indicates special treatment of a
certain material beyond simple resource exploitation.
The relative absence of red deer bones and the lack
of evidence for their utilisation (as opposed to antl.er)
is less-easily explained. A possible explanatIOn
might be the commonly-held taboo among northern
hunting cultures against breaking the bones .of
reindeer (or caribou) to extract marrow, WhICh, m
common with using the brain, would be regarded as
an insult to the animal's soul (Edsman 196?). Such a
taboo at Star Carr might only be envIsaged as
applying to deer, since the . metacarpals and
metatarsals of elks were cut mto sphnters for
spearhead manufacture.
Another common taboo among northern hunting
cultures precludes women from coming into
with the bones of certain animals, like the
and breaking them, and also against them working m
the vicinity of a caribou hunt (Edsman 196?). The
presence of skin-scraping tools made of flmt and
bone at Star Carr has been taken to indicate the
presence of women (Clark 1954), based upon t.he
high frequency of female rather. than skin-
workers observed in ethnographIc studieS (Clark
1954, Hayden 1992). The association. between
Eskimo women and the 'ulu', a
scraper which they used for cleaning hIdes IS a
classic example (Boas 1964, Leroux et alI994). That
red deer bones were under-represented at Star Carr
might imply that they had been deliberately left at
the kill site or curated elsewhere, away from a
potentially female-dominated skin processing and
craft area. Such a scenario is supported by. a recent
detailed study of the sub-artic Dene (Chlpewyan)
communities (Brumbach and Jarvenpa 1997).
Alternatively, the under-representation ?f deer ?ones
at Star Carr might be explained by an m the
selective disposal of animal p.arts m water
regularly attested in ethnographIC (e.g.
Vitebsky 1995, 107). Previously the deposItlOn of
antler in water at Star Carr has been interpreted fr?m
a purely functionalist viewpoint, that such processmg
makes the antler easier to work (Rowley-Conwy
1998). However, there are many of. bones
being deliberately deposited in an
account by Lundius (1905, 35, CIted m Mebms 1965,
358) describing how the Saami deer body
parts, particularly defleshed bones, mto or
on to wet land, in order to shmulate deer fertlhty and
to appease their spirits. The link between. and
water recurs in a Saami legend descnbmg how
people first acquired reindeer herds; a. and
woman were instructed by God to depOSIt remdeer
bones in a cold spring, and after they had done so a
reindeer herd appeared (Mebius 1965, 359). For a
more detailed discussion of the deposition of antlers
and bones in water see Chatterton (this volume).
BEVAN
Of particular relevance to the interpretation of the
deer frontlets are etJmographic accounts of the
collection and special treatment of the skulls and
antlerslhorns of hunted animals. For example, some
late 1 i
h
_ to early 18
th
-century accounts cited by
Mebius describe a ritual procedure connected Wlth
reindeer hunting among hunting and herding groups
in Norway, in which the quarry's as well as
the skin of its head, were left behmd on the spot
where the animal had been killed (1965).
account describes sacrificed reindeer bones bem?
unbroken at the sacrificial site where the recelvl.ng
deity would create a new reindeer .from remams
(1965). Such sites, often featunng stones
laced upon a bed of twigs inside a semICIrcle of
antlers (Manker 1962, Fig. 57,
Vorren 1965, 519-521), were common vlSltm.g
points in the ritual landscape (see Chatterton, thIS
volume).
The ritualistic treatment of skulls is by no means
restricted to the northern hunting cultures. For
example the homed skulls of wild mountain sheep,
which hunted from Palaeo-Indian ti.mes in the
Rocky Mountains of North Amenca, were
deliberately placed in trees during the 19
th
and 20
th
centuries (and possibly prior. to
ethnographic accounts support theIr as medlcme
trees' where offerings of beads and tnnkets were left
(Frison et al 1990, 232-234). Large skulls from
mature rams were selected for this special, and
potentially widespread, treatment which been
interpreted as possibly 'some. kind of
ritualistic significance assocIated Wlth game
procurement' (Frison et al 1990, 238). The. authors
mentioned that the brain cases had been dehberately
opened, a factor which, they strengthened
the case for 'ritual treatment (Fnson et al
234), implying, at least to this author, .that. the brams
might have been consumed as a specIal .ntual
perhaps by the successful or, If a slllular
taboo against using the bram or as
documented by Edsman (1965) was m. place,
carefully disposed of elsewhere. In any
in animal body parts and their
consumption/disposal is well attested m. the
ethnographic literature. Whether or not the ntual
involved the consumption or other treatment of
animals' brains, it is entirely as Wlth
the Saami, replacement of the mdlvldually or
collectively, was the aim of the exerCIse.
37
Hunting techniques
Of course it is possible that the Star Carr
frontlets were used in hunting. Some
studies provide interesting information on huntmg
PEOPLING THE MESOLITHIC
techniques, particularly among the Saami who set
pitfall traps in autumn and spring and corralled
reindeer, using wooden fences and stone walling
(Vorren 1965). Watercourses and lakes near elk and
reindeer runs were the most popular locations for
pitfall traps which, covered with twigs and
brushwood with reindeer lichen laid on top as bait,
were often equipped with sharp stakes to pierce the
animals as they fell. The places where reindeer
generally pass, cited by Saami informants, were
'tongues of land between watercourses, dry parts of a
marsh, along rivers and lakes and over
watersheds' (Vorren 1965,518).
Reindeer are particularly vulnerable in the water and
the Saami often hunted them when they were
swimming across rivers. Vorren mentions an
informant who describes how reindeer would be
driven out into a lake, where a canoe would be
concealed near an island ready for the water-borne
hunters to intercept the prey (1965, 531). As Otto
Blehr pointed out in his discussion of communal
caribou hunting, many aspects of which can be more
widely applied, the possession of a 'boat technology'
enabled hunters to kill animals in water which acted
as a very efficient 'enclosure' (Blehr 1990, 313).
This scenario would fit rather well with the Star Carr
environment where there is the possibility that lake-
edge sites were visited by boat and a paddle was
found during Clark's excavation. In a sense antler
might have been regarded as a particularly apt
material for spearhead manufacture both in practical
and symbolic terms. Conceptually, the prey,
certainly in the case of red deer, might have been
viewed as virtually 'killing itself. The spearhead
would also have been a suitable tool for killing large
animals, such as red deer and elk, at close hand when
they were at their most vulnerable, in the water.
There is evidence that deer return to favoured mating
grounds, and it is possible that Star Carr was located
at a strategic point on their journey, perhaps where
they swam across the river and could be trapped in
the shallows (Mellars and Dark 1998, 228).
Moreover, the potential use of the lake for killing
animals makes it a particularly appropriate
depositional venue and potential medium of
transformation for the antler frontlets and other body
parts discussed by Chatterton (this volume).
The Saami also used tame female reindeer as decoys
to attract the male wild reindeer (Vorren 1965,514).
A 17th -century account describes how during the
autumn rut the hunters went into the woods where
they knew the wild reindeer were, bound their tame
does there and waited for the stags to come, in order
to shoot them (Samuel Rheen cited by Collinder
1949, 211). From the faunal remains we know that
38
stags, as opposed to does, were also the preferred
prey at Star Carr (Clark 1936, 170). Stags are more
numerous than does, and unsuccessful stags
(seriously wounded, poor fighters or those past their
prime) are surplus to requirements compared to the
smaller, impregnated does who then give birth the
following summer. The deer population could have
withstood the selective culling of surplus males, who
would also have provided greater meat weight and
hide volume than female deer. Another tactic in
attracting game during the mating season is the use
of birch bark whistles of the kind employed by
native Americans such as the Cree (Fig 9). This
might explain the numerous rolls of birch bark found
at Star Carr, some of which, measuring '8 inches
wide and 30 inches long' (Clark 1954, 16), would
have been ideal for manufacturing a simple whistle.
;/
,i
i
Figure 9 Drawing of Cree moose caller by Mark
Breedon, from a photograph by Howard S Curtis
(1998,669)
The mechanics of deer reproduction would have
been understood by the Star Carr people and the deer
would certainly be at their most vulnerable during
the autumn rut which takes place during late
September and early October. The stags are also in
peak condition at this time and roar while engaged in
fighting, a loud, unearthly sound that would have
alerted the hunters to their presence. While it is just
possible that some kind of incipient deer husbandry
was being practised at Star Carr, although this
remains to be demonstrated, it is logical that the
frontlets were being used as decoys instead of the
tame does mentioned by Samuel Rheen. However,
the frontlets were all from stags. In this case, were
they being used as male decoys to att.act other stags
to fight? Surely the deer would have been able to
differentiate between male and female antlers, even
at a distance, and presumably scent would also
played a part in locating females. The large SIze of
the stag antlers suggests, on a symbolic level at least,
that like was designed to attract like, as in case. of
the two ethnographic studies cited by Clark III WhICh
hunters carried or wore male deer heads to attract
other stags (1936, 170). Perhaps the best illustration
of this practice is provided by a copperplate
engraving entitled Methods of Hunting Deer by
Jacques Le Moyne from T de Bry's 'America',
to 1591 (Fig 10). Here, hunters are shown weanng
almost complete deerskins (although deer masks
might be used instead) in order to increase their
chances of making a kill by coming as close as
possible to their prey (Kasprycki 2000, 163).
Figure 10 Methods of hunting deer by Jacques Le
Moyne from T de Bry's 'America' 1591
Was the sex of the hunters masquerading as stags
significant? Was killing a large, potent and
potentially dangerous deer a rite of passage for
young male hunters, as it is among the Inuit today?
Was this viewed as a means of achieving hunter
status and maturity before being considered fit to
mate with one's own kind? The connection between
males and hunting is well-attested in the
ethnographic record, and it is generally true
males are more likely to hunt large game WIth
projectiles, a narrow definition of 'hunting' which
has been criticised (Brumbach and Jarvenpa 1997),
than are women who tend to kill smaller game in the
course of gathering plant produce, but there are some
notable exceptions. For example, despite the
principally male role in hunting in many arctic
cultures, the first kill of an animal or bird by
adolescents of both sexes is marked socially and
ritually by the successful hunter cutting up the kill
and giving the first and best piece of the carcass to
the woman who served as midwife at hislher birth.
The midwife then completes the distribution, while
simultaneously praising the 'person she has
made' (d'Anglure 1984, quoted in Bonvillain 1995,26).
39
BEVAN
Among the Agta Negritos of north-eastern Luzon in
the Philippines, certain groups of women hunt wild
pigs with dogs, using machetes or the bow and arrow
(Estioko-Griffin and Bion Griffin 1997). Whereas
some Agta groups practice communal hunting,
usually in family groups, other groups favour
sexually-differentiated hunting bands, particularly
among female archers who learn their hunting skills
as young girls and continue hunting for as long as
they are physically able, with the only hiatus
occurring during late pregnancy and early lactation
(ibid).
It is also noteworthy that the earliest accounts of the
Saami people mention that the women went hunting
with the men (Tacitus and Procopius cited by
Collinder 1949, 206-207). In his 'History of the
Peoples of the North' Olaus Magnus (1555) wrote
that the women hunted with the men, but that the
men distributed the kill and decided which parts
should be broiled (Magnus cited in Collinder 1949,
215). An engraving from Magnus's book shows both
Saami male and female hunters (Fig 11), later
misinterpreted as 'Lapps out hunting, accompanied
by a woman' (V0rren 1962, Fig. 6, 14).
A recent study of the sub-artic Dene (Chipewyan)
communities has revealed an even greater female
involvement in hunting, from all-female hunting
bands to mixed-sex groups consisting of wife and
husband and daughter and father and even
grandfather and granddaughter (Brumbach and
Jarvenpa 1997). All-male bands tend to travel further
afield and their hunting trips are more protracted and
tend to leave less impact on the archaeological
record than mixed-sex processing camps where a
greater range of artefactual and faunal debris will be
left (Brumbach and Jarvenpa 1997). Based upon the
Chipewyan model (Brumbach and Jarvenpa 1997),
the rich antler and bone industries recovered at Star
Carr were more likely to have resulted from
intensive processing activities carried out by both
sexes, but principally women, rather than reflecting
Binford's 'boredom reduction strategies' proposed
by Rowley-Conwy for a handful of male hunters at a
look-out stand (1998, 107). Otherwise, the sheer
volume of material at Star Carr suggests that
boredom was terminal during the Mesolithic.
Instead, I suggest that a large labour force, composed
of both mature and young males and females, was
required for efficient hunting at Star Carr, certainly
during the initial stages when driving of the game
was carried out and deer and elk might have been
killed in the water and along the shore. Co-operation
would also have continued in processing the
resulting carcasses, logically to accumulate sufficient
PEOPLING THE MESOLITHIC
Figure 11 Saami hunters (Vorren 1962, Fig 6,14)
dried meat to last throughout the winter. However,
this in no way detracts from the possibility of an
ideological relationship between stags, antlers and
the construction of Mesolithic masculinity _
concepts which might have been further played out
within a ritual arena.
Rituals and shamanism
The strong possibility that Star Carr was a 'central
aggregation point' would help to place the antler
frontlets in a ritual and ceremonial context. But what
part would they have played? What kinds of rituals
and ceremonies could have been conducted at Star
Carr? The much-reproduced image of the Tungus
shaman equipped with a full antler head-dress taken
from an engraving made in 1705 was used in Clark's
site report (Clark 1954, Fig. 75, 171). While it shows
a similar head-dress being used in a ritual, it does not
explain what shamanism is and how it might have
been organised at Star Carr. The strictest use of the
term 'shaman' was applied by anthropologists to the
classic neo-Siberian masters of the late 19
th
to early
20
th
century who, wearing a certain type of gown
decorated with amulets and animal body parts,
performed to their own beating of a sacred drum,
going into trances, either when their souls departed
on visionary journeys or when spirits took
possession of their bodies or spoke through them as
oracles (Campbell 1988). However, shamanism,
40
characterised by trance, drumming and intercession
with the spirit world is also known from many other
cultures, particularly, but not exclusively, among the
northern hunting cultures.
Shamans were ritual leaders in their societies and
were equally capable of cursing and healing, often
using animal body parts or substances. For example,
among the Even of Siberia, antler blood is
considered to be an especially potent tonic (Vitebsky
1995, 101). Eye-witness accounts and cultural
mythology suggest that neighbouring shamans were
competitive rather than cooperative. Shamans could
also be female, such as the exclusively female
shamans among the Mapuche Indians of Chile
(Campbell 1988, 159) who are responsible for
marriage-broking and overseeing large ceremonies,
and there is also a great deal of evidence for female
shamans and medicine women among the coastal
Algonquin tribes and several other native American
groups (Grumet 1980). 'Shamans are central figures
in their societies, yet they are also marginal, marked
off from others by their extraordinary experiences ... '
and 'even if shamans are ordinary hunters,
housewives or farmers when off-duty, they retain the
constant potential to enter other worlds and become
other beings' (Vitebsky 1995, 91).
The earliest known evidence for shamanism is
believed to date to the Palaeolithic. The so-called
dancing sorcerer, a bison figure with a bow, from the
cave of 'Les Trois Freres' in central France is
believed to be a shaman figure connected with
hunting magic (Halifax 1982, 54-56, Clottes and
Lewis-Williams 1996, 108-110). There is a common
connection between hunting and shamanism among
hunting cultures whose myths often tell how animal
spirits first approached people, suggested that they
might like to eat them, and instructed them in the
proper etiquette of doing so (e.g. Vorren and Manker
1962, Mebius 1965,). If the souls of killed animals
do not give themselves up willingly, then bad luck
and famine will follow. The shaman has the power to
intercede with animal souls and carry out certain
necessary rituals to ensure that the spirits of killed
animals, often protected by a master spirit, are
properly placated, that body parts are treated
correctly and that killed animals are thus replaced.
The belief that animals have souls (that have to be
appeased when the animals are killed), is
fundamentally different from western thought,
influenced by the early church, that animals are sub-
species at the mercy of human beings, to use
however they wish. Even if kindness is advocated,
animals are still regarded as radically different and
inherently inferior. Conversely, viewed from a non-
western perspective, animals are a different kind of
people rather than a different species. In this context,
spiritual contact, transformation, and shape-shifting
are entirely possible.
At Star Carr, a site originally interpreted as a hunting
camp, the connection with shamanism is an easy one
to make. Presumably rituals could have featured
dancing, drumming, singing and chanting, activities
difficult to recognise in the archaeological record
without evidence of material survival. Dancing and
drumming to a state of exhaustion is a recognised
method of achieving a trance-like shamanistic state
and the hallucinogenic mushroom, fly-agaric, which
'became common in the birch and pine forests as
these spread over the Siberian plains in pursuit of the
retreating ice cap of the last glacial age, c 10,000
BC' could also have been available (Wasson 1971,
208 cited in Rudley 1993, 14). A ceremonial drum of
the kind used by the Saami (e.g. Manker 1962, Fig.
44, 98-99) would easily have deteriorated in the
ground at Star Carr, where leather was not preserved.
The wooden band would simply have sprung off
once the leather had rotted, and while perhaps
recognisable as worked wood, it would otherwise be
unrecognisable as a musical instrument. Percussion
could have been achieved with the hand or an
unworked fragment of antler, wood or bone. Bone
flute-type instruments, if used, would have been
preserved among the waterlogged material, so it is
unlikely they were used unless they were discarded
41
BEVAN
elsewhere or transported off-site. There is no
evidence for any recognisable wooden effigies
associated with ritual but antlers and deer skulls
might have been hung-up over hut entranceways or
mounted on posts nearby, outside the area of
excavation, perhaps in the manner of the deer skull
with antlers mounted on a stake at the lake edge at a
site dated to 10,000 BP at Stellmoor, North Germany
(Bratlund 1991, Chatterton, this volume, Figure 26).
Dance
Dance is arguably the 'earliest art form' (Wosien
1974, 8), and is common in most societies. Antlered
and homed masks are popular with agriculturalists
(Cawte 1978), as well as with hunting groups,
especially in Africa and South America. The
relationship observed between agrarian communities
and homed animals such as deer is different to that
between hunting communities and their prey. Among
such groups, hunting is often still important, antlers/
horns are still a focus of interest, but meat is no
longer the main basis of diet, and many rituals and
dances are designed to stimulate fertility of soil and
crops, although there is often still a magical role for
the hunted animal to fulfill.
Several hunting dances, including the Buffalo Dance,
conducted before the major annual buffalo hunt
(Lommel 1981, 143-144), are recorded among ~ e
native Americans, particularly the Plains tribes (FIg
12). The Buffalo dance is performed exclusively by
male hunters (Lommel 1981, 143), but antlered and
homed animals are not always associated with
maleness, and female buffalo dancers have been
recorded among other tribes such as the Cheyenne
(Fig 13). Among the Oglala of South Dakota, where
Figure 12 Buffalo dance (LommeI1981, 143)
PEOPLING THE MESOLITHIC
1,1
i \
\ I:'"
.. )v !
" ,,' \-
Figure 13 Cheyenne buffalo dancers, drawn
by Mark Breedon, after a photograph by
Edward S Curtis (1998, 711)
the buffalo was the main prey and provider of meat,
skins and fuel, female initiation into young
womanhood after the first menstrual seclusion was
called the Buffalo Ceremony. Here, the buffalo spirit
was invoked to secure the traditional virtues most
desired by Oglala women for the initiate - chastity,
fecundity, industry and hospitality (Powers 1986,
66-73). The ceremony involved the Medicine Man
dressed in a buffalo head-dress simulating mating
with the initiate. Although both sexes were
associated with the buffalo, females were linked with
them to a greater degree, in view of their perceived
fertility. The mythological shape-shifting seductress,
the Deer Woman, who visited people in dreams was
exclusively associated with women, and young
women had their own sodality dedicated to her, but
they could also participate in rituals associated with
male fraternities such as the Elk Society (Powers
1986, 73-74).
In his study of masks, Andreus Lommel posed the
question 'why should a dance performed in the guise
of the animal to be hunted, enhance the hunters'
luck?' and concluded that there was no explanation
for this, but that 'the symbolism of the mask and the
ritual in all ceremonies is always centred upon the
object to be achieved' (ibid 144).
Clark also mentioned the Abbot's Bromley Hom
Dance in relation to Star Carr (1954). This dance is
still performed every autumn at Abbot's Bromley,
Staffordshire by a group of six men wearing
Elizabethan costume and carrying reindeer antlers
(Fig 14). This folk practice is believed to have
42
Figure 14 The Abbot's Bromley Horn Dance
(Toulson 1981, 113)
started during, or even before, the Middle Ages and
has been interpreted as a 'simulated deer hunt', the
roots of which have a supposed prehistoric origin
(Whitlock 1979, quoted by Toulson 1981, 115).
Perhaps the recurring connection between dance and
hunting can be better explained by the common
linking of animal and human fertility observed
among most hunting peoples and manifest in ritual
dances simulating rutting (Vitebsky 1995, 106). Such
dances were performed in parts of Siberia 'where the
reproduction of game animals was encouraged
through dances and mimes representing their rutting
and mating' (Vitebsky 1995, 106). The dances were
explicit, ribald and probably enjoyable for the
participants but, despite the carnival atmosphere,
they were of the utmost seriousness. Some dances
were performed by males alone, others by both sexes
with a shaman keeping time on a drum and slapping
the legs of any caught slacking with his
drumstick' (ibid 107). The ritual was called the
'renewal of life' and the animals imitated were
reindeer and elk, the object being to 'gladden the
spirits animating these species and induce them to
play the same kind of games' (ibid 107).
If a similar ritual dance had been performed at Star
Carr in the Mesolithic period, who could have been
involved? Taking the interpretation a stage further, it
is tempting to envisage the dancers as young male
initiates on the threshold of manhood, especially
when the importance of antlers in the annual rut, as
weapons used by competing stags, is considered. If
the 21 antler frontlets at Star Carr were used
together, the dancers might have performed in pairs,
simulating fighting or rutting with perhaps a
'shaman' or other ritual leader, who was probably
similarly-attired in an antler head-dress, presiding
over the dancers. Hunting might have been regarded
as an essential part of the construction of
masculinity, and the life cycle of the deer as it grew,
achieved sexual maturity, and fought to achieve
reproductive and territorial prominence might have
been seen to reflect the lives of men. It is also
possible that some of was
encouraged in the selechon of mamage partners, that
the 'deer dance' was designed to display the
available young men to the young women from
neighbouring groups. Thus the dynamics of
attraction would be played out within a social/ritual
context involving the whole community and uniting
a number of otherwise scattered groups, especially if
the central aggregation point theory is correct.
Conclusions
Based upon the sheer volume of ethnographic
information regarding the use of animal masks and
head-dresses in dances and rituals, especially those
connected with hunting, it is more than likely that the
antler frontlets from Star Carr attest to some kind of
ritual expression at the site, the exact nature of which
will always remain enigmatic. In non-western
societies, hunting is neither a straightforward
economic activity nor a sport. It is inextricably
linked with both human and animal fertility, as in the
case of the Oglala identification with the buffalo
(Powers 1986), and it is as much concerned with the
replacement of life as with the taking of it. Taboos
must be observed and guardian spirits appeased, or
even encouraged, in order to achieve a 'renewal of
life', the object of the Siberian ritual dances
described by Vitebsky (1995).
While the Star Carr antlers might have been used in
hunting and in initiation rites, possibly, but not
certainly, restricted to young males, I feel that a
'Deer Dance' was the most logical medium for the
frontlets' use. Such a dance might have been
conducted before the hunt in order to encourage
success, or perhaps afterwards to celebrate the
culmination of a successful enterprise, creating
sufficient surplus to ensure human survival
throughout the winter months, while metaphorically
ensuring renewed deerlhuman fertility in the coming
year when new animals would be born. A further
parallel between human and deer fertility might have
been expressed in the forming of new alliances
between young males and females from outlying
groups coming together for the annual deer hunt.
To conclude, in prehistoric studies there is a growing
recognition, best exemplified by the work of John
Chapman (2000), that the manipulation of the
fragment, whether in a domestic, ritual or mortuary
context was often in the past a metaphor for
engage:nent with the whole. Processes of selection
and curation of the fragment can be identified in the
BEVAN
h
10 ical record and are most usually thought
arc aeo g di . tt ong
to be represented by stmct pa am
. . II artefactual and human remams. Rather
pnnclpa y . 1 I' 11
than Star Carr being an exclUSive. y eco oglca y-
. d location for a huntmg and food-
determme I
t base it would seem to represent a pace
procuremen , I d d
tapho
r and necessity over appe, an
where me .' h fr
where curation and of t e agmentary
. f certain ammal body parts suggests that
remams 0 . th
they possessed an at
d d th
eir prachcal value. Whlle this
transcen e
identification with species such as was not
43
t d here through permanent art, It may have
represen e t d through the transient, but no less,
been enac e h
. ful medium of dance. I argue that t e
meamng , . f h fr tl t
. II most interestmg aspect 0 t e on e s
potenha Yd' . ( tr
was not their eventual watery eposlt1on con a
Chatterton, this volume), but what happened to
C h d l'ncorporating processes of selectlOn,
bel ore an , . b h
1 mod
ification, curahon and use, y uman
remova , . h 't 1 d
. . dynamic senes of unts, n ua s an
bemgs m a . .. h
The study of Mesolithic Bntam per aps
dances. 1 t' J
d t
o not only 'beyond haze nu s ,as enny
nee s 0 g ., 1 btl
Moore argues elsewhere m thiS vo ume, u a so
'beyond bones'.
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