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Osei Bonsu | Linguists Staff 

Asante, Ghana, mid-20th century

One of the 20th century’s leading African sculptors was Osei Bonsu. Osei Bonsu carved this gold-covered wooden linguist’s staff for someone who could speak for the Asante king. At the top are two men sitting at a table of food—a metaphor for the office of the king.  There is a related proverb: “Food is for its rightful owner, not for the one who happens to be hungry.”

Zdzisław Beksiński (1929–2005), “Cemetery Landscape,” detail

Cope Park, Juneau, Alaska

This headdress was discovered at Star Carr, which is an archaeological site located in North Yorkshire. More than 30 other deer-skull headdresses (also known as frontlets) have been unearthed at the same site, all dating back to the Mesolithic period, c.9000-8000 BCE.

Above: one of the other headdresses from Star Carr

According to this article:

The most famous of the Star Carr finds are the enigmatic headdresses crafted from deer skulls, with holes drilled into them and parts of the antlers removed. Some headdresses are smaller than others, and could have been worn by children.

The headdresses are uncommon artefacts, with only three similar objects known elsewhere (in Germany), which raises the question of why there are so many at Star Carr.

Above: deer-skull headdress from Star Carr

The holes that were carved into each skull were likely used to secure the headdress onto the wearer's head.

Above: another frontler from Star Carr

The purpose and significance of these artifacts remains unclear. Some experts believe that they were worn as hunting disguises, while others argue that they served a ceremonial purpose. Those two theories may not be mutually exclusive, as this author points out:

The initial dichotomised interpretations offered by Dr. Graham Clark as to the frontlets’ purpose have characterised their discussion for the vast majority of the latter 20th century as either a shamanic headdress or a hunting disguise. More recently, however, researchers have critiqued this dichotomy, noting that many hunter-gatherer worldviews afford little meaningful distinction between functional and symbolic actions.

It can be argued that as shamans are widely regarded as playing a key role in negotiating human/animal relations and hunting luck, an artefact which aids the corporeal transformation of a human body into that of a deer could be used in both capacities interchangeably. Certainly, the contexts into which the frontlets were being deposited at Star Carr suggests that a complex set of meanings were attached to them.

Sources & More Info:

The British Museum: Headdress

Current Archaeology: A Survival Story: Prehistoric Life at Star Carr

Star Carr Volume Two: Studies in Technology, Subsistence and Environment: Antler Frontlets

Star Carr Archaeological Project: Antler Headdresses

York Archaeology: Mesolithic Marvels: Conserving the Star Carr Headdresses

PLoS One: Technological Analysis of the World’s Earliest Shamanic Costume