Summary
A Neolithic long barrow visible as cropmarks and soil marks showing a roughly oval enclosure.
Reasons for Designation
The long barrow 380m south-west of Thorganby House is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Survival: as a clearly defined cropmark and soil mark 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 inform us 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;
* 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;
* Group value: for its historic and functional group value with other long barrows, including the long barrows at Valley Plantation (1015874) and Swinhope Park (1013886), both separately scheduled.
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.
The Neolithic long barrow 380m south-west of Thorganby House is one of a number of similar monuments which are focussed in the area of the Waithe Beck and suggests that the location had considerable ritual significance in the Neolithic period. Evidence from this group of barrows may have implications for the study of prehistoric settlement patterns and demography. This particular long barrow survives as a cropmark and soil mark on aerial photographs and was recorded as a shallow earthwork on Lidar images in 2006-7. It was first scheduled in 1999. Since the ditch is not broken by a causeway, it is thought that this is an example of the simpler form of Lincolnshire Wolds long barrow which was not elaborated by the construction of a substantial earthwork mound over the area set aside for funerary activities.
Details
Principal elements: a Neolithic long barrow visible as cropmarks and soil marks showing a roughly oval enclosure. The barrow lies some 400m west of Waithe Beck, on the east-facing slope of the Waithe Beck valley, approximately 69m AOD.
Description: there are no surviving visible traces of the long barrow on the ground but it is apparent from the aerial photographs as a cropmark and soil mark, and as a shallow earthwork on 2006-2007 lidar, centred at TF 2053 9732. These images show a barrow defined by a roughly oval ditched enclosure with maximum dimensions measuring 44m east to west by 22m north to south. Its western terminal is somewhat pointed whilst the eastern end is slightly convex. There is possibly a short length of an outer second ditch on the east side. A low, almost levelled, earthwork mound is visible on 2006-2007 lidar and on a digital elevation model derived from the Structure from Motion of 2016 specialist oblique colour photography. This mound is poorly defined but appears to have spread considerably wider than the footprint of the barrow enclosure itself.
Valuable archaeological deposits will be preserved on the buried ground surface and in the fills of the ditch. These will provide rare information concerning the dating and construction of the monument and the sequence of mortuary practices at the site. The same deposits will also retain environmental evidence illustrating the nature of the landscape in which the monument was set.
The monument lies approximately 900m due south of the long barrow at Thorganby Hall, and 1.25km NNW of Ash Hill long barrow, both separately scheduled and which are part of a larger group associated with the Waithe Beck and its tributaries. It is located approximately 380m south-west of Thorganby House which is listed Grade II, (NHLE 1317278).
Map extract: the site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 5m boundary around the archaeological features.
