Neolithic long barrow and Bronze Age round barrow 650m SW of Riby Grove Farm

Summary

Buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow and Bronze Age bowl barrow.

Reasons for Designation

The long barrow and round barrow 650m south-west of Riby Grove Farm, is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Survival: as a clearly defined crop mark, soil mark and earthwork monument representing the burial practices, beliefs and social organisation amongst early prehistoric communities;
* Potential: for the buried archaeological deposits which retain considerable potential to provide evidence relating to social organisation and demographics, cultural associations, human development, disease, diet, and death rituals. Buried environmental evidence can also provide inofrmation about the landscape in which the barrows were constructed;
* Period: as one of very few monument types dating to the early prehistoric period, it is highly representative of the period, the significance of the monument is enhanced by the spatial relationship with the bronze age round barrow adding chronological depth to the site;
* Rarity: as an example of a monument type which is rare nationally and one of very few monument types to offer insight into the lives and deaths of early prehistoric communities in this country.

History

Long barrows and chambered tombs are the main forms of Neolithic funerary monument, constructed from before 3800 BC with new monuments continuing to be built throughout the 4th millennium BC. Where they are precisely dated it appears their primary use for burial rarely lasted longer than about 100 years. Generally comprising long, linear earthen mounds or stone cairns, often flanked by ditches, they can appear as distinctive features in the landscape. They measure up to about 100m in length, 35m in width and 4m in height, and are sometimes trapezoidal or oval in plan. Earthen long barrows are found mostly in southern and eastern England and are usually unchambered, although some examples have been found to contain timber mortuary structures. Regional variation in construction is generally a reflection of locally available resources. Megalithic or stone,chambered tombs are most common in Scotland and Wales, but are also found in those parts of England with ready access to the large stones and boulders from which they are constructed, especially the Cotswolds, the South-West and Kent. There are around 540 long barrows recorded nationally.

Long barrows of the Lincolnshire Wolds 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. A small number survive as earthworks but the majority are known from crop marks and soil marks where no or very low mounds are evident on the surface. Not all Lincolnshire long barrows had mounds and our current understanding of Neolithic mortuary practices in this part of the country is that the large barrow mound was in fact the final phase of construction which was not reached by all monuments. Previously many of the sites where only the ditched enclosure is known have been interpreted as a barrow where the mound has been degraded or removed by subsequent agricultural activity. In some cases the ditched enclosure (mortuary enclosure) represents a monument which never developed a mound.

Bowl barrows, the most numerous form of round barrow, are funerary monuments dating from the Late Neolithic period to the Late Bronze Age, with most examples belonging to the period 2400-1500 BC. They were constructed as earthen or rubble mounds, sometimes ditched, which covered single or multiple burials. Often occupying prominent locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape and their considerable variation of form and longevity as a monument type provide important information on the diversity of beliefs and social organisations amongst early prehistoric communities. They occur either in isolation or grouped as cemeteries and often acted as a focus for burials in later periods.

The long barrow and bowl barrow at Riby Grove Farm were first scheduled in 1999.

Details

Principal elements: The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow and a Bronze Age round barrow some 650m south-west of Riby Grove Farm. They sit on a spur of land that overlooks several dry valleys, one in particular is to the immediate east of the site known as The Vale. The site lies near to the crest of the spur at approximately 64m AOD.

Description: The barrows are visible as cropmarks and soilmarks on aerial photographs and did show as a very slight earthwork on a 10cm resolution Digital Elevation Model created using aerial photographs in 2016 and is still visible at ground level. The long barrow is centred at TA1715 0548, is aligned north-west to south-east and measures 65m by 28m, defined by a complete circuit of ditch approximately 2m in width. The south-eastern end directly faces the river valley of Irby Dales. The circuit of the ditch is not thought to be broken by a causeway suggesting that the barrow is an example of the simpler form of Lincolnshire long barrow which was not elaborated by the construction of a large earthen mound when the funerary rituals were completed. The long barrow is thought to be an outlier of a group of similar monuments focused on the Waithe Beck, the closest example of which is the elaborated long barrow in Ash Holt to the south-east which is also scheduled (NHLE 1013890).

The bowl barrow is visible 13m to the north-east of the southern end of the long barrow. The encircling ditch has a diameter of approximately 30m overall and material quarried from this ditch would have been used for the construction of the barrow mound. The mound has, however, been reduced by ploughing and is indistinguishable from the spread of the long barrow mound.

Extent of Scheduling: The extent of the monument, including both the round barrow and long barrow, is shown on the attached map and includes a 10m buffer zone on the south, east and west sides of the long barrow and 5m buffer around the north side of the rouind barrow which is considered necessary for the support and preservation of the monument.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

29729

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Field, D, Earthen Long Barrows, The Earliest Monuments in the British Isles, (2006)
Woodward, A, British Barrows A Matter of Life and Death, (2000)
Last, J, Beyond the Grave, New Perspectives on Barrows, (2007)
Long Barrows and Neolithic Elongated Enclosures in Lincolnshire: an analysis of the Air Photographic Evidence in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Vol. 64, (1998), 83-114

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