Epipalaeolithic Near East Caucasus Zagros Star Carr is a Mesolithic archaeological site in North Yorkshire, England.

Though the ice age had ended and temperatures were close to modern averages, sea levels had not yet risen sufficiently to separate Britain from continental Europe.

[2] At the end of the last ice age a combination of glacial and post-glacial geomorphology caused the area to drain to the west (away from the shortest-distance to the North Sea at Filey).

As a result of such good conditions archaeologists were able to recover bone, antler and wood in addition to the flints that are normally all that is left on sites from this period.

During the period of Mesolithic occupation the area surrounding the lake would have been a mixed forest of birch, aspen and willow.

A large wooden platform has been discovered nearby on the shore of the former lake – the earliest known example of carpentry in Europe, though its purpose is as yet unknown.

Timbers of Aspen and Willow were split along the grain using wedges (probably made of wood and antler); these were then laid in the boggy areas at the lake shore, presumably to provide firm footing.

The flint found at Star Carr came from nearby beaches, which at time of occupation would have been about 10 to 20 km (6 to 12 mi) distant, and also from the Yorkshire Wolds immediately to the south of the site.

[9][10] Star Carr was discovered in 1947 when John Moore, an amateur archaeologist, noticed flints in the exposed soil of several recently dredged ditches in the eastern Vale of Pickering.

On the discovery of intact organic remains Moore contacted Professor Grahame Clark of the University of Cambridge via Harry Godwin and the curator of the Scarborough Museum, Arthur Roy Clapham.

[11][12] Clark began his investigation with the explicit aim of building a more detailed picture of the Mesolithic environment and the ways in which people used it.

It is now recognised that many of Clark's inferences were incorrect but the excavation remains one of the most important in the study of British prehistory ever undertaken.

The discovery of Mesolithic material led to a new series of investigations around Lake Flixton directed by Tim Schadla-Hall (currently University College London).

[14] This project investigated the archaeology and ecology of the wider landscape around Lake Flixton and found several more Mesolithic sites but none with as many of the unusual artefacts (such as barbed points and antler frontlets) discovered at Star Carr.

[17] Clark, the original excavator, believed the Mesolithic people would have lived on a brushwood platform on the edge of the former Lake Flixton.

They found strong evidence to suggest that the site was used only in late spring and summer; evidence that the cull of red and roe deer was biased towards three- and one-year-old animals respectively; revision of available meat; reduction in scale of occupation; no bias towards hunting of male red deer, and tentatively suggested that the site was used as a hunting camp.