Cross-channel exchange: 7,500-year-old deer skull headdress links Europe’s hunter-gatherers with early farmers

Archaeologists excavating a Linearbandkeramik (LBK) Neolithic village at Eilsleben, Germany, uncovered a roe deer skull headdress and accompanying antler tools dating ~7,500 years ago. The finds suggest Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and early farmers interacted and exchanged not only material goods but also symbolic ideas, indicating a complex, two-way cultural transfer at Europe’s early farming frontier.