Star Carr, an Early Mesolithic site in North Yorkshire, England, has proven to be a treasure-trove of artifacts such as these. Most of the contents to date go back to around 8,000-9,000 BCE containing not only headgear such as this (one of 33 found to date in this location as of the writing of this forum), and even fewer found in Bad Dürrenberg, located in the Saalekreis district of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, clearly reworked to be worn on the head, but also accompanied by many tools known for making fire, sewing, hunting, decorative objects such as shells and teeth for necklaces, and some used to hold and mix pigments for paining on walls and some having known cosmetic usage such as traditional and ceremonial painting on the skin by comparing such objects used even today by the few remaining cultures that still live a lifestyle of Mesolithic age people. Even so-called wands have turned out to be ceremonial drum sticks and remains of rattles. A fact that is seldom corrected. Other sites demonstrate similar cultural foundations and concepts by style and methods going back to at least 30,000 BCE and even older still. The question remains what these headdresses were used for specifically, however, the nonsense claims these were only worn by women is just that, fictional nonsense of modern feminist fake history. The following is also highly speculative.
Echoes in folklore such as Hern the Huntsman described more in the concept of a ghost with such antlers growing from his head, or some kind of helm with such "horns," from which his namesake is derived, meaning horned one. A common theme more widespread in archeological caches such as Star Carr and has been cited from time to time as being tied to characters often named "Cernunnos," though the spelling is more likely to have been closer to Kernunnos since the name part was damaged and only known from a 1st century CE artifact called the Pillar of the Boatman. Another example includes the figure shown here as a cut out from the Gundestrup cauldron found dismantled and left in a peat bog to be rediscovered later in 1891 near the area it was named after in Denmark. It dates to around the same time period of the Pillar of the Boatman. As to such character being a deity specifically must be called into question as it was not uncommon for Romans and Greeks to assume characters and words related to some kind of deity that had nothing to do with a deity or "divine figure," including honored ancestors. Note the following is also highly speculative.
The fact the character in this example is holding a "horned serpent" which was often symbolic of communication with the "underworld" as the dominion of the dead cannot be overlooked. It is also itself often associated with rainstorms and floods such as the various concepts of world serpents. However, it is a dramatic mistake to assume all "flood stories" tell the same story because careful research shows some flood stories are very clearly local events. Some being seasonal and in some cases more than one destructive one is being spoken of at different times in folk memories. Old shoddy scholarship and blind assumptions is behind much of the nonsense distortions we have now even with something as simple to investigate as these flood story narratives.
This spans from Europe into Asia and includes Japan, which also has some reflections among native populations of Canada and North America, and where such examples and similar art representations depict ancient tribal leaders often elevated much later to more mythical status further back in time as far as tribal memory and any written accounts can reflect because of their perceived connections and relationships with beings of the spirit world interwoven with this one but invisible most of the time from normal human sight(or so the more common descriptions and expressions of authentic ancient cultures than modern neo knock off forms tend to impose). We know at least some of these headdresses also had feathers connected to the antlers and see many examples of these are forms in various petroglyphs. We can also trace the apparent migration of this particular concept in a similar distribution.
Other than the actual folklore references cited, many of the modern claims are simply not reliable conclusions and using figures from such as the Harrapan civilization of the Indus Valley is also not a reliable source to make such connections because of perceived similarities. We do, however, have an example from a wood cut representing such a figure in Siberia. The imagery was inspired by a wood cut by Nicolaes Witsen, a Dutch Explorer who encountered people still practicing old traditions in Siberia and surrounding regions in 1692, which he made a woodcut image of, and called a man dressed in animal hides, bear claws and wearing antlers “the same priest of the Devil.” It featured conical tents in the background, a little dog leaping around the man playfully, while the man holds a drum stick and playing a ceremonial drum, not unlike the examples of people in Siberia that still practiced such things, and matching artifacts such as red tail deer skulls fashioned into headdresses going back to around 8000 BCE.
We know also for a fact that deer and caribou have been engrained into such defined as Scandinavian, Celtic, Slavic and Germanic Mythology; all of the sites are located where these ancient civilizations had flourished as far as European examples have shown. The context of such things is as stated, long since lost for the most part. However, as must also be pointed out, unless the early Roman occupation of parts of Europe and records being subsequently erased accordingly, there is no evidence that a specific deity called such as Cernunnos was known to any of these populations, which isn't all that shocking either because Romans often renamed local deities which were not actually represented in human forms.
Of course, the there are some surviving examples which we see mostly in more remote locations such as China, but when it comes to genetics, we come to the Ancient North Eurasians (ANE), a once-widespread Pleistocene population that had mostly disappeared about 10,000 years ago, after the end of the last ice age, known from their mummies found in the Tarim basin of China, and whose genetic markers survive only fractionally in some present day populations of Northern Europe, Siberia and the Americas. One finds among different populations such as the headdresses such as the one featured here worn by a man of the Oroqen people in Northern China and similar antlered headgear can be seen periodically among the Buryat people of Mongolian ancestry specifically in Southeastern Siberia. In addition to these factors, we find such examples of customs of old folk festivities often involving the use of things like Caribou and Deer antlers that for a variety of reasons, the actual basis behind such observances has long since been lost. And while there are indeed many other diverse kinds of such outfits, these are among the oldest that come up more frequently and likely used as both ceremonial outfits and as a way of getting closer to prey animals as has been observed once again by various tribal cultures that practiced such things well into the present.
Even notes from some Roman accounts make clear that among many of those that were called Celts, the idea of deities in human form was laughed at and considered childish to which the same Romans naturally "too offense." Ancient Greeks mentioned the deer (and likely Caribou specifically) that lived in a northerly land where the sun never sets. This clearly has connections to Siberia and Scandinavian regions. We must also be clear not all "horned" deities that are known are the same deities and we have examples of this from other cultures where such symbolism and deities were recorded by name and concept most clearly and ranging from India, Mesopotamia, and Egypt to name a few, predating what would come to be called the Greek and Roman civilizations that influenced more than modern sources care to admit, and many modern so called "Pagans and Heathens" pretend to be representing consistently in their invented fake histories, and false claims of ties to cultures for which they are completely cut off from and divorced by centuries. A lot of this also stems from earlier shoddy scholarship and much of this was or more less part of shoddy armchair scholarship, a concept that still haunts academic discussions to this very day. This includes using the term, Shaman.
Saman, from sama- (same) Dutch saman, to German schamane and Russian Shaman. It is the source of the identifier used by those who came to call themselves the Sami because the meaning is “same.” It is a well-established fact that beyond a few superficial trappings, everything else associated with so called Shamanism is based upon outright fraud, misrepresentation and shoddy scholarship as an invented "universal" religion. Indeed, it is an invention of early "Anthropologists" and modern New Age teachers of nonsense. In fact, those who had actually spent well over 30 years or more of their lives investigating such things have noted that most of the things claimed to be defined as shamanism (predominately various tribal cultures) engage in things like drug induced alternations of perception and consciousness once they learn of the meaning of such things tend to scoff at it themselves. Furthermore, they don't call themselves or the traditions shaman or shamanism. In fact, many have historically found such concepts and imposed contexts rather insulting. This is only exacerbated when scholars and contemporary (more or less fake) practitioners (actors) are unclear and often sloppy with their basic terms. In other words, they just make it up as they go. Ultimately, it's just a cover term for yet again nonsense based in experimentation in sex and drugs for the most part and is another cover term rooted in occultism and occult ideology and has no real roots in various traditional practices other than superficial observations of costumes, drums, and the like. Do not be fooled by fools leading the foolish.