From Awashimadai to Star Carr: A Japanese Jomon perspective on the subsistence strategies and settlement patterns of Early Mesolithic hunter–gatherers in the Vale of Pickering, UK

Abstract Star Carr and other Mesolithic sites in the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire, UK, have seen long-standing interest from archaeologists since the 1950's, and offer a vivid picture of various aspects of post-glacial hunter–gatherers in Northwest Europe. However, answers to several important aspects of prehistoric behavior still remain unclear, particularly concerning local subsistence and settlement strategies. This paper develops a comparative approach to these questions, and draws structured analogies between the British Mesolithic and the Jomon period of Holocene hunter–gatherer archaeology in Japan, both of which occupied similar temperate/sub-boreal woodland environments. Thus the purpose of this paper is to better understand early Mesolithic socio-economic strategies in the Vale of Pickering, by: 1) re-considering the organization of subsistence at Star Carr via careful comparison with the Jomon period site of Awashimadai in Kanto District, paying renewed attention to the two main features of Star Carr, i.e. the organization woodland deer hunting and the lack of evidence for use of aquatic resources; and 2) by re-examining overall land use strategies in the Vale of Pickering by re-analysis of faunal remains first recovered from excavations conducted in the late 1970's and 1980's. The results of this comparative analysis indicate that Star Carr was a summer hunting camp organized for deer, probably occupied exclusively by people socially specialized in hunting, and that Mesolithic land-use strategies probably extended well beyond the Vale of Pickering.