A MAJOR new exhibition is about to turn the clock back by millennia – and whisk visitors back into Britain’s Stone Age past.

Some of the most remarkable and complete finds from the country during the Mesolithic period have been assembled at the Yorkshire Museum in York for After the Ice, Yorkshire’s Prehistoric People.

The objects, on loan from museums all over the country, come from Star Carr, near Scarborough, where a number of settlements once stood on the shores of a huge lake.

They include 11,000- year-old deer skull head-dresses, bone harpoons, amber jewellery and even examples of carpentry – all amazingly preserved in peat.

Star Carr is noted internationally as the type-site for understanding hunter-gatherer communities of the Mesolithic period in Europe and has been investigated by archaeologists since 1948.

The ancient finds are being displayed alongside digital content giving visitors a taste of the sights and sounds that their ancestors would have experienced in Yorkshire 11,000 years ago.

The exhibition, which opens tomorrow, May 24, coincides with the publication of Star Carr: Life in Britain After the Ice Age, by the Council for British Archaeology. The book tells the story of excavations at the site which was buried in a deep layer of peat on the edge of prehistoric Lake Flixton.

Curator of archaeology Natalie McCaul said: “Eleven thousand years ago at Star Carr, Stone Age people lived, hunted and worshipped. They built Britain’s oldest known house and wore deer skull head-dresses to hunt or to worship unknown Gods.

“For the first time since they were discovered we have brought together some of these remarkable objects in this new exhibition.

“It is a unique chance to see them all under one roof and to learn more about the mysterious people who lived in Yorkshire thousands of years ago.”

For more information visit yorkshiremuseum.org.uk