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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 320m north west of Skendleby Psalter is not visible on the ground, its buried remains will retain valuable archaeological deposits on and in the old ground surface and within the fills of the ditch. These will provide information relating to the dating and construction of the monument and the sequence of funerary ritual. Environmental evidence preserved in the same deposits will illustrate the nature of the landscape in which the monument was constructed and used. The monument is one of a number of long barrows in the area all of which are associated with waterways and with the Bluestone Heath Road which is thought to have originated as a prehistoric trackway. The frequency of these monuments indicates the ritual significance of the location and has interesting implications for the study of demography and settlement patterns during the prehistoric period. Details The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located 70m above sea level on the south facing slope of the valley of a tributary of the River Lymn. Although it cannot be seen on the ground, the monument is clearly visible as a cropmark from the air, and has been recorded on aerial photographs. The cropmark represents a buried elongated wedge-shaped enclosure measuring c.50m by 20m, aligned north-south and delineated by an infilled, unbroken ditch. The northern end is rounded, with straight sides tapering to a more rectangular southern end. This ditch form is thought to represent the simpler type of Lincolnshire long barrow which consisted of an area set aside for mortuary activities and defined by a ditch which may have supported a palisade and façade or an arrangement of posts. Structures and deposits associated with these activities will survive as buried features within the enclosure. When the funerary rituals were completed, the enclosure would have been covered with scraped earth rather than the large mound which characterises the elaborated form of Lincolnshire long barrow. The monument is one of a number of long barrows in the area, which includes the Skendleby group situated c.1km to the south, and the two burial mounds known as Deadmen's Graves at a similar distance to the east. These monuments are associated with waterways and with the Bluestone Heath Road which is thought to have originated as a prehistoric trackway and which was later overlain by a Roman road. Sources Other discussions, Jones, D, (1995) oblique monochrome photograph, Everson, P, 3218/10, (1986) oblique monochrome photograph, St Joseph, J K, BRW 052, (1974)

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