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Description

Reasons for Designation Long barrows were constructed as earthen or drystone mounds, generally with flanking ditches. They acted as funerary monuments during the Early and Middle Neolithic periods (3400-2400 BC), representing the burial places of Britain's early farming communities, and as such are amongst the oldest field monuments surviving in the present landscape. Where investigated, long barrows appear to have been used for communal burial, often with only parts of the human remains having been selected for interment. Certain sites provide evidence for several phases of funerary activities preceding the construction of the barrow mound, including ditched enclosures containing structures related to various rituals of burial. It is probable, therefore, that long barrows acted as important spiritual sites for their local communities over considerable periods of time. The long barrows of the Lincolnshire Wolds and their adjacent regions have been identified as a distinct regional grouping of monuments in which the flanking ditches are continued around the ends of the barrow mound, either continuously or broken by a single causeway towards one end. More than 60 examples of this type of monument are known; a small number of these survive as earthworks, but the great majority of sites are known as cropmarks and soilmarks recorded on aerial photographs where no mound is evident at the surface. Not all Lincolnshire long barrows include mounds. Current limited understanding of the processes of Neolithic mortuary ritual in Lincolnshire is that the large barrow mound represents the final phase of construction which was not reached by all mortuary monuments. Many of the sites where only the ditched enclosure is known have been interpreted as representing monuments which had fully evolved mounds, but in which the mound itself has been degraded or removed by subsequent agricultural activity. In a minority of cases, however, the ditched enclosure will represent a monument which never developed a burial mound. As a distinctive regional grouping of one of the few types of Neolithic monuments known, these sites are of great value. They were all in use over a great period of time and are thus highly representive of changing cultures of the peoples who built and maintained them. All forms of long barrow on the Lincolnshire Wolds and its adjacent regions are therefore considered to be of national importance and all examples with significant surviving remains are considered worthy of protection. The buried remains of the long barrow known as Giants Hills III will retain valuable archaeological deposits in the fills of the ditch and on the old ground surface. These will contain information relating to the dating and construction of the barrow and to the sequence of mortuary ritual at the site. Environmental evidence preserved in the same deposits will contain information on the nature of the landscape in which the monument was constructed and used. The close proximity of three other, similar monuments is indicative of the ritual significance of the location and has wider implications for the study of demography and settlement patterns during the Neolithic period. Details The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow situated some 60m above sea level on the eastern side of the valley of a tributary of the River Lymn, 750m north west of Lodge Farm, on the boundary between two fields. Although the monument cannot be seen on the ground it is visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs. The cropmark represents the buried remains of a wedge shaped mortuary enclosure some 90m by 30m, aligned south east-north west, and defined by an infilled ditch. The ditch has a rounded south eastern end and the north western end is thought to be open. This ditch form is considered to represent a particular form of Lincolnshire long barrow, which would not have had a large earthen mound, the ditch delineating an area set aside for funerary activities, including the exposure of human remains. Structures and deposits relating to these activities will survive as buried features within the enclosure. The monument lies in close proximity to three other long barrows which together form the Skendleby group. These barrows are the subjects of separate schedulings. The Bluestone Heath Road, which is thought to have originated as a prehistoric ridgeway, is aligned about 150m to the north west-south east of the monument. All fences and fence posts are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath them is included. Sources Books and journals Bradley, R, 'Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society' in Excavation Of Oval Barrow Beside The Abingdon Causewayed Enclosure, , Vol. 58, (1992), 127-142 Other discussions, Jones, D, (1995) oblique monochrome photographs, Cox, C, 2402/24; 2401/26, (1986)

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