See remarkable 11,000-year-old artefacts as we exhibit some very special items from our Star Carr Collection, including an antler headdress, barbed points, birch bark rolls, flint tools and animal remains.
Star Carr is just south of Scarborough and dates to around 9,000 BCE. It’s world famous due to the preservation of rare artefacts buried deep in the peat.
The objects on show cast light on the lives of our ancestors. The antler headdress, or frontlet, is thought to be made from the skull and antlers of red deer, and was probably used for ceremonial purposes.
The barbed points, also made from red deer antlers, were probably used in hunting and fishing. They are a rare find – 227 have been found at Star Carr, accounting for around 92% of all barbed points known in England.
The exhibition also includes two films, one film featuring animation by illustrator Savannah Storm, introducing each object, the other filmed by artist Annabel McCourt and including schoolchildren from Hertford Vale C of E Primary School interviewing Nicky Milner, Head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, former director of excavations at Star Carr.