Bedburg-Königshoven (Mesolithic antler frontlets)

Bedburg-Königshoven is a prehistoric archaeological site in Germany where two headdresses made from the antler frontlets and skulls of red deer dated to the Mesolithic were discovered in 1999. The headdresses, dubbed "Cap 1" and "Cap 2", are some of the oldest traces of shamanism—or any religious expression of early modern humans—as yet uncovered. The site was inhabited in the Mesolithic, in the Preboreal stage of the current Holocene Epoch. The Preboreal lasted from 10,300 to 9,000 Before Present in radiocarbon years, or 8350 BC to 7050 BC in calendar years (8th millennium BCE). The Bedburg-Königshoven site is located in western Germany near the former village of Morken; the village was destroyed by mining activity in the 1960s and 1970s. In the Mesolithic, Bedburg-Königshoven was situated on a dead branch of the Erft river.

Archaeological site data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).