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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. The long barrow east of Fordington House Farm is a good example of this class of monument - well documented by aerial photography and geophysical survey and confirmed by limited excavation. Although degraded by ploughing, rare and valuable archaeological information will be retained on and within the buried ground surface, and in the fills of the surrounding ditch, relating to the construction of the monument and to the sequence of mortuary ritual at the site. Environmental evidence preserved in the same contexts will illustrate the nature of the landscape in which the monument was set. The dimensions of the long barrow are worthy of note since it represents the largest of the class yet identified in Lincolnshire. The monument is one of a number of Neolithic long barrows associated with the valley of a tributary of the River Lymn and with the prehistoric trackway now formalised as the Bluestone Heath Road. This chosen location poses wider questions concerning both the ritual significance of the area and the patterns of Neolithic settlement in the landscape. Details The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located c.90m above sea level on the eastern side of the valley of a tributary of the River Lymn. It was first identified in 1976 and was recorded on aerial photographs. A geophysical survey in 1989 further demonstrated its form and extent. Although the barrow mound has been degraded by ploughing, the encircling ditch is preserved beneath the present ground surface. It is aligned east-west and encloses an area some 125m long by 30m wide. A section of the monument, towards the western end, has been disturbed by chalk quarrying and this provided an opportunity for limited archaeological evaluation in 1989. Sampling for radiocarbon dating confirmed that the monument was constructed in the Neolithic period. The monument forms part of a dispersed group of Neolithic long barrows associated with the Bluestone Heath Road and known as the Skendleby group. The road itself is thought to have originated as a prehistoric trackway and is, at this point, overlain by the course of a Roman road. Sources Other discussion - district archaeologist, Field, F N, (1995) discussions, Jones, D, (1995) oblique monochrome photograph, Everson, P, (1986)

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