Long barrow 400m north west of Sevenbarrows House

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 examples of long barrows and long cairns, their counterparts in the uplands, are recorded nationally. 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.

Only three long barrows are recorded in Berkshire. As such they represent outliers to the important cluster of similar monuments in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire. This example has particular significance as it has produced the earliest date for such a monument in Britain.

Details

The monument includes a long barrow 400m north west of Sevenbarrows House. The monument survives as an earthwork with the eastern end standing to a height of 1.5m. It is orientated east-west with the eastern end partly in woodland. On the north side of the mound the ditch is most clearly defined, surviving to a width of c.8m and a depth of up to 0.4m. The mound survives to a length of 70m and a width of 18m. Partial excavation in 1964 produced a crouched female adult burial with perforated marine shells as well as other bones, animal and human, flint tools and pottery. The site has also been dated to 3415 BC, currently the earliest date for a long barrow in Britain.

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:

12025

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Gaffney, V, Tingle, M, The Maddle Farm Project, (1989)
Grinsell, L V, Archaeology of Wessex, (1958)
Grinsell, L V, Berkshire Archaeological Journal in Berkshire Archaeological Journal (Volume 40), Vol. 40, (1936)
Wymer, J J, Antiquity in Antiquity, Vol. 44, (1970)
Wymer, J J, Berkshire Archaeological Journal in Berkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 62, (1965)

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