Chapter 5 of Olszewski's Archaeology and Humanity’s Story discusses early hunting and gathering societies and the development of settled life, food production, and complex societies - issues that we will consider in later sections of the course. The summary of early European prehistory in Chapter 6 provides a regional context for Star Carr.

In "Life on the lake edge: Mesolithic habitation at Star Carr," Milner et al. provide a concise summary of Clark’s original work at Star Carr (1949-1951) and the influential generalizations about the Mesolithic that have been based on it. They summarize subsequent investigations by the Vale of Pickering Trust (1985-1992) and the Star Carr project (2004-2015), reporting the discovery of new kinds of features (a likely house, two other structures that may be shelters, and a platform made with split timbers) and revising some of Clark's conclusions.

"Dryland structures" by Taylor et al. (Chapter 5 of the Star Carr Project's technical site report) describes three constructions that are very different from anything found by Clark or the Vale of Pickering Trust: one is probably a house and two others seem to be shelters of some kind as well. These structures are consistent with other discoveries in recent investigations that suggest Star Carr was much larger and that the people who lived there had more features of sedentary life than early investigators recognized.

Chantal Conneller's "Becoming deer: corporeal transformations at Star Carr" presents an interpretation of the red deer frontlet masks in a post-processual vein. She draws heavily on anthropological theorizing about agency, the body, and animals; her fondness for the jargon associated with these themes makes her prose heavy going in places. "Life on the lake edge" supersedes the summary of the archaeology of Star Carr at the beginning of the paper; focus on pages 42-53.

Moore, "The Excavation of Abu Hureyra 1" (Village on the Euphrates: Ch 5) is one of the few readings that give you real sense of what archaeological excavation is like, what kinds of data it produces, and how the data have to be analyzed and interpreted to make them speak to larger issue in archaeological interpretation. Think about how the authors get from the things they found to the picture of the Abu Hureyra 1 community they paint in the "The Development of Abu Hureyra."

"The Development of Abu Hureyra" (Village on the Euphrates: Ch 14) by Moore, Hillman, and Legge is a good summary of the development of the site from a village with a few pit houses and a maximum population of a few hundred, to a much larger village with as many as 6000 residents. It effectively blends interpretation of economic and social change with reference to the archaeological data on which it is based.