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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 buried remains of the Neolithic long barrow north of Grebby Hall cannot be seen on the ground, they are clearly visible from the air and will retain rare and valuable archaeological deposits on the buried ground surface and in the fills of the ditch. These will provide important information concerning the dating and construction of the barrow, and the sequence of mortuary ritual at the site. Environmental evidence preserved in the same contexts will illustrate the appearance of the landscape in which the monument was set. The monument is situated less than 3km south of both the Skendleby group of long barrows and the pair known as Deadmen's Graves and may be an outlying example of a wider group associated with the River Lymn. Details The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located c.65m above sea level below the summit of a low plateau between two wide, shallow river valleys. The western river drains into the River Lymn, and that to the east is a tributary of The Beck. Although the monument cannot be seen on the ground, it is clearly visible from the air as a cropmark on aerial photographs. It appears as an elongated oblong enclosure aligned north west- south east, some 60m long by 35m wide. The cropmark representing the surrounding ditch has rounded corners and its circuit is unbroken, a form which is thought to indicate an example of a simpler type of this monument class. The central enclosure would have been the focus for mortuary activities including the exposure of human remains, and structures and deposits relating to this activity will survive as buried features. The monument is situated less than 3km south of both the Skendleby group of long barrows and the pair known as Deadmen's Graves. Sources Books and journals Burl, A, The Stonehenge People, (1989), 30 Other discussion, Jones, D, (1995)

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