Please read our guidance page about heritage designations.

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. Although the Neolithic long barrow 850m ENE of Ruckland House has been degraded by ploughing, its buried remains are clearly visible from the air. Rare archaeological deposits will be preserved on and within the buried ground surface and in the fills of the ditch. These will contain valuable information relating to the dating and construction of the monument and the sequence of funerary ritual at the site. Environmental evidence retained 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 a second, similar monument about 150m to the north is indicative of the ritual significance of the location in the prehistoric period. Details The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located 110m above sea level below the summit of a plateau overlooking athe valley of a tributary of the Great Eau, some 850m ENE of Ruckland House. Although the monument is not visible on the ground, it has been recorded on aerial photographs as a soilmark indicating the location of the buried remains. The monument appears as an enlongated, slightly wedge shaped feature in plan, aligned south east-north west, and measuring c.54m by 22m. The south eastern end is slightly concave while the north western end is rounded. Changes in soil coloration are thought to indicate the remains of pits and structures associated with mortuary activities which were originally set within a great mound, the loction of which is now indicated by a dense scatter of chalk; the material from which the barrow mound was constructed. This material has been dispersed by ploughing and is thought to cover the area of an enclosure ditch from which it would have been quarried. A second, similar monument situated about 150m to the north is the subject of a separate scheduling (SM 27884). Sources Other oblique monochrome photographs, Everson, P, 2945/8, 10, 13, (1980)

External Links (1)

Sources (2)

Location

Related Monuments/Buildings (1)