What the heck is a lek?
Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
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This neolithic tool is made from deer antler that was used to clear the land in prehistoric Wiltshire. It was found in a Corston Spring in 1950.
This object is an example of a perforated antler rake which is made from a red deer antler. It would have been used to clear land ready for planting crops such as wheat and barley. These were some of the first cereal crops farmed. This antler rake was found at Corston Spring, west of Corston Village, Wiltshire in 1950.
Farmers visiting the Museum found tools used in farming today look very similar to the antler rake, relating the use of these Neolithic tools to the land use of today. This shows that despite thousands of years of evolution in technology, there are still many objects that are fundamentally comparable to prehistoric tools.
This antler rake would have been used as a farming tool within Wiltshire to ready the land for planting crops. Made from Red Deer antler, today Red Deer are mostly found within Scotland and the highlands, however they can still also be found across the Wessex Landscape. There are fewer Red Deer than there once were due to a loss of forest landscape, which would have begun with the clearing of forestry for farming production within the Neolithic period. Although there is no clear way to tell if the antler came from a deer that lived in the Wessex region, deer were used in Wessex since the Mesolithic period as a source of textile, food and farming tools.
Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
The great bustard has a dignified slow walk but tends to run when disturbed, rather than fly.
The hen-bird on display at The Salisbury Museum was one of the last great bustards to be eaten in the town!