ROYAL Mail has released eight stamps featuring some of the most inspiring objects and atmospheric sites of UK prehistory.

The set includes the Star Carr headdress found at the mesolithic site at Seamer near Scarborough.

Illustrated by London-based artist Rebecca Strickson, the stamps have been designed as overlay illustrations, detailing how people lived and worked at these sites and used the objects.

The stamps present a timeline of prehistory, from a glimpse of ancient ritual of 11,000 years ago, to the Iron Age of around 300 BC. They indicate a huge degree of organisation in ambitious building projects, and sophistication in exquisite metal working.

For each of the stamps, Royal Mail will provide a special postmark on all mail posted in a postbox close to where the site is located or the artefact found. until January 21. To obtain the special handstamp, customers should post at the postbox at Seamer Post Office.

Philip Parker, Stamp Strategy Manager, Royal Mail, said; “The UK has an incredibly rich heritage of prehistoric sites and exceptional artefacts. These new stamps explore some of these treasures and give us a glimpse of everyday life in prehistoric Britain, from the culture of ancient ritual and music making to sophisticated metalworking and the building of huge hill forts.”

A special exhibition at the Yorkshire Museum in York called Ritual or Disguise featuring the Star Carr Headdresses has also opened this week.

Professor Nicky Milner from the University of York, said: "These headdresses are incredibly rare - Star Carr is the only site in Britain where they have been found and only three other examples are known from Europe. I am thrilled that a headdress is going to appear on a stamp. I am also very excited that some of our recently excavated examples are going on display in the Yorkshire museum. It will give the public an opportunity to see these amazing and mysterious objects and think about how our ancestors might have been used them 11,000 years ago."

The stamps are available at Post Office branches across the UK and at www.royalmail.com/ancientbritain