Long Barrow 360m south of Black Plantation

Summary

A Neolithic long barrow located 360m south of Black Plantation.

Reasons for Designation

The long barrow 360m south of Black Plantation is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Survival: as the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow identified on geophysical survey and visible on aerial photography as a clearly defined cropmark;

* 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 Neolithic, 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 us insights into the lives and deaths of early prehistoric communities in this country;

* Group value: for its close proximity to other contemporary or spatially-related scheduled monuments, notably a scheduled long barrow located around 50m to the south-west, 440m south-west of Black Plantation (NHLE 1489373), and a scheduled long barrow located around 290m to the south, to the north of Withcall (NHLE 1456916).

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 long barrow 360m south of Black Plantation was identified from cropmarks during aerial photographic (AP) assessment as part of the Lincolnshire Long Barrows Project. A geophysical survey carried out in January 2019 confirmed the survival of the enclosure ditch.

Details

Principal elements: A Neolithic long barrow, located 770m north of the hamlet of Withcall and just to the north of Hallington Road, around 360m south of Black Plantation. The barrow site sits near the top of a ridge; part of a series of valley heads above tributaries and springs. The downward slope to the north-east is very steep, and the barrow overlooks the southern of two small streams that have their springs to the west. These join and meet the un-named tributary north-east of Withcall that runs to the River Lud. There are further springs in Black Plantation to the north and the barrow also overlooks these. The barrow is at approximately 100m AOD.

Description: The AP assessment has shown the survival of the long barrow as an incomplete oval ditched enclosure with maximum visible dimensions measuring 32m by 16.5m with a possible break in the ditch circuit to the south.

A magnetic gradiometer survey was carried out to confirm and potentially add detail to the evidence identified from APs. These results confirmed the elongated enclosure ditch is clearly visible as a below ground feature. It matches the mapped cropmark, it is aligned north-west to south-east and measures 33m by 16.5m, with an open end to the north-west and convex terminal to the south-east. There is a very slight taper towards the open end, with the internal width dropping from 13m in the south-east to 11m in the north-west. The ditch is around 2m wide.

Valuable archaeological deposits will be preserved on the buried ground surface and in the fills of the ditch. These, if analysed scientifically, will provide rare information concerning the dating and construction of the monument and the sequence of mortuary practices at the site. The same deposits may also retain environmental evidence illustrating the nature of the contemporary landscape in which the monument was set.

This long barrow forms part of a dispersed group of three, one immediately to the south-west, and another 335m to the south.

Extent of scheduling: The scheduled area is marked on the attached map and includes a 5m buffer zone around the barrow, which is considered necessary for the support and preservation of the monument. There are no exclusions from the scheduling.

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)
Jones, D, 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

Other
Geophysical Survey report LLB1.19 Heritage Lincolnshire

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