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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 Neolithic long barrow south east of Flint Hill House has been degraded by ploughing, rare archaeological deposits will be retained on and in the buried ground surface and within the fills of the ditch. These will contain valuable information relating to the dating and construction of the barrow and 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 monument is one of a number of Neolithic and Bronze Age barrows associated with the River Bain and with the adjacent prehistoric trackway. These associations demonstrate the ritual significance of the location and pose wider questions concerning communication routes. The frequency of these monuments also has implications for the study of prehistoric demography and settlement patterns. Details The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located 135m above sea level below the summit of a plateau overlooking the valley of the River Bain to the west, c.300m south east of Flint Hill House. While the monument cannot be seen on the ground, it has been recorded as a cropmark on aerial photographs. The cropmark represents an elongated, slightly wedge shaped mound which has been degraded by ploughing. It is aligned north west- south east approximately 50m by 22m. Material for the mound would have been quarried from an encircling ditch which is now infilled. The north western end of this ditch is slightly convex while the narrower, south eastern end is broken by a causeway. A thickening of the plan of the ditches in the longer sides is thought to indicate recutting, suggesting that the long barrow remained a focus of attention over a long period of time. The north western end of the ditch is slightly convex in plan, while the narrower, south eastern end is broken by a causeway. The form of the ditch is thought to represent a more elaborate type of long barrow which may have been constructed for a particular group or class within Neolithic society. The monument is one of a number of long barrows associated with the valley of the River Bain and with a prehistoric trackway, the course of which runs some 250m to the south west, overlain by Roman and modern roads. Sources Books and journals Burl, A, The Stonehenge People, (1989), 30 Other discussions, Jones, D, (1995) oblique monochrome photographs, Everson, P, 2974/15-18, (1979)

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