Long barrow on Salt Hill

Reasons for Designation

Long barrows were constructed as earthen or drystone mounds with flanking ditches and acted as funerary monuments during the Early and Middle Neolithic periods (3400-2400 BC). They represent the burial places of Britain's early farming communities and, as such, are amongst the oldest field monuments surviving visibly 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 monument preceding the barrow and, consequently, it is probable that long barrows acted as important ritual sites for local communities over a considerable period of time. Some 500 long barrows are recorded in England. As one of the few types of Neolithic structure to survive as earthworks, and due to their comparative rarity, their considerable age and their longevity as a monument type, all long barrows are considered to be nationally important.

The 180 long barrows of Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset form the densest and one of the most significant concentrations of monuments of this type in the country. This example is important as it survives well and, with no evidence for formal excavation, has considerable archaeological potential.

Details

The monument includes a long barrow sited across a gentle slope between the summit of Salt Hill and ground falling steeply to the NW. It commands wide views except in a southerly direction but would itself only have been conspicuous from certain distant points. The barrow mound survives as a low earthwork orientated NE-SW and rectangular in plan. It is 44m long, 20m wide and survives to a height of 0.8m above the flanking quarry ditches. These are 9m wide and show as shallow hollows to the NW and SE of the mound. The site is now under grassland, but when last ploughed many large flint nodules were visible in the make-up of the mound.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

12095

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Draper, C, Mesolithic And Neolithic Distribution In SE Hampshire, (1955)
Smith, I F, Long Barrows in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, (1979)
Schofield, A J, Archaeology and historic buildings in Hampshire in Avon And Meon Valleys - Fieldwalking, (1987)

End of official list entry