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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. Although the long barrow south of Cowdyke Plantation cannot be seen on the ground, its survival in good condition beneath the present ground surface is clearly apparent from air photography. Valuable archaeological deposits will survive within the ditch and on the buried ground surface. These will illustrate the period and construction of the monument and the sequence of burial ritual at this site. Environmental evidence will also be retained in these deposits and will contain information relating to the appearance of the landscape in which the monument was set. The long barrow is one of a group of similar monuments associated with the valley of the Waithe Beck and with the prehistoric trackway now known as High Street. These associations pose wider questions concerning not only the ritual significance of the chosen locations of these barrows but also the patterns of Neolithic settlement on the Lincolnshire Wolds. Details The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located 150m above sea level on an east facing slope of the Waithe Beck Valley. Although the monument cannot be seen on the ground it is clearly visible as a soilmark on aerial photographs. It appears as an elongated, slightly wedge shaped oblong enclosure aligned east-west, delineated by an infilled ditch measuring c.40m long by 20m wide. The eastern end of the ditch is wider and more rectilinear in plan than that to the west and the circuit is unbroken, a form thought to indicate a simpler type of this monument class. The ditched enclosure is believed to have been a focus for mortuary activities, including the exposure of human remains and the remains of structures and deposits associated with these activities will survive as buried features. The long barrow is one of a group of similar monuments associated with the valley of the Waithe Beck and with High Street (the B1225) which originated as a prehistoric trackway. Sources Books and journals Phillips, C W, 'Archaeologia' in Excavation of Giants' Hills Long Barrow, Skendleby, Lincs., , Vol. 85, (1936), 37-106 Other discussion, Jones, D, (1995) oblique monochrome photograph, Everson, P, 2955/36, (1978)

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