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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 Langton Grange Cottage has been degraded by ploughing, rare and valuable archaeological deposits will be retained on the buried ground surface within the enclosure and within the fills of the ditch. These will contain valuable information relating to the date and construction of the barrow and the sequence of mortuary practices at the site. Environmental evidence will also be preserved in these deposits relating to the nature of the landscape in which the monument was set. The proximity of Spellow Hills long barrow is indicative of the ritual significance of the location and poses wider questions concerning patterns of settlement and demography during the Neolithic period. Details The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located 80m above sea level above the source of a tributary of the River Lymn, 650m south of Langton Grange Cottage. Although the barrow cannot be seen on the ground, it is clearly visible as a cropmark from the air as an elongated oblong enclosure defined by an infilled ditch aligned north east-south west, and measuring some 60m by 20m. The ditch has straight sides and curved ends and is thought to be unbroken by a causeway, representing a simpler form of this monument class. It is thought that the enclosure was a focus of mortuary activities including the exposure of human remains, and structures and deposits associated with these activities will survive as buried features. It is situated c.275m south west of Spellow Hills long barrow which is the subject of a separate scheduling. Sources Other discussion, Jones, D, (1995) oblique monochrome photograph, Everson, P, 2940/30, (1980)

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