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 buried remains of the long barrow known as Giants Hills III will retain
valuable archaeological deposits in the fills of the ditch and on the old
ground surface. These will contain information relating to the dating and
construction of the barrow and to the sequence of mortuary ritual at the site.
Environmental evidence preserved in the same deposits will contain information
on the nature of the landscape in which the monument was constructed and used.
The close proximity of three other, similar monuments is indicative of the
ritual significance of the location and has wider implications for the study
of demography and settlement patterns during the Neolithic period.
Details
The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow situated
some 60m above sea level on the eastern side of the valley of a tributary of
the River Lymn, 750m north west of Lodge Farm, on the boundary between two
fields. Although the monument cannot be seen on the ground it is visible as a
cropmark on aerial photographs. The cropmark represents the buried remains of
a wedge shaped mortuary enclosure some 90m by 30m, aligned south east-north
west, and defined by an infilled ditch. The ditch has a rounded south eastern
end and the north western end is thought to be open. This ditch form is
considered to represent a particular form of Lincolnshire long barrow,
which would not have had a large earthen mound, the ditch delineating an area
set aside for funerary activities, including the exposure of human remains.
Structures and deposits relating to these activities will survive as buried
features within the enclosure.
The monument lies in close proximity to three other long barrows which
together form the Skendleby group. These barrows are the subjects of separate
schedulings. The Bluestone Heath Road, which is thought to have originated as
a prehistoric ridgeway, is aligned about 150m to the north west-south east of
the monument.
All fences and fence posts are excluded from the scheduling, although the
ground beneath them is included.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 5 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.
