The setting of the discoveries (1947–9) described in this paper is the relatively flat and low-lying basin of the easterly and coastal end of the Vale of Pickering in north-east Yorkshire. Abounding hereabouts are many ditches nearly all of which serve as field boundaries draining what is mostly quagmire of varying depth. These empty their waters into the Hertford river or Muston Drain, a canalised version of an ancient stream which rises near the coast and flows directly inland. Sections revealed in these drains, supplemented by borings, show the area around Flixton to possess a stratified series of Late Glacial and Early Post-glacial deposits distinct from anything yet known in the greater part of the Vale to the west. Although the Pleistocene geology of the Vale of Pickering is not yet adequately understood, the presence of these deposits makes the Flixton area of far more than local interest.

During the early part of the summer of 1947, I examined some gravels forming an exposure in the face of a ditch. Nothing of archaeological interest was seen at the time, but one week later I made a second, somewhat casual, scrutiny of the same section and upon this occasion I found and extracted the flint blade which presaged a closer scrutiny of the section and eventual excavation within the area (Site 1). It was not until the excavation of Site 1 had been nearly completed (Nov. 1948) that other sites were located.

The first season's digging at Star Carr, Seamer, was confined to the examination of a single cutting and a lateral extension from this, the whole area amounting to no more than 475 square feet. The second season's work carried out in June and July 1950 was aimed first and foremost at learning more about the character of the brushwood flooring revealed in 1949 and in increasing the range of data bearing on the culture of the mesolithic hunters and on the wild animals on which they subsisted. Cuttings (II and III) were accordingly opened on either side of the original one, but three-foot balks were retained so as to prevent loose peat and water pouring from the original cutting into the new workings (fig. 1). The width of cuttings II and III was maintained at three yards so that the peat overlying the archaeological level could be dumped without harrowing. The new cuttings were started three yards south of datum, in view of what had been learnt in the previous season about the limits within which organic materials survived. Cutting II was extended southward well out into the lake bed, but cutting III was not carried out so far owing to the seepage of water from the lateral extension from the original cutting. The total area examined in cuttings II and III was approximately 747 square feet.