Long Barrow north-east of Stonepit Covert

Summary

Neolithic long barrow north-east of Stonepit Covert.

Reasons for Designation

The long barrow north-east of Stonepit Covert is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Survival: as the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow visible as clearly defined cropmarks and soil marks on aerial photography;

* 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 Tathwell long barrow, 350m NNW of the junction of Horncastle Road and New Lane (NHLE 1013892), located around 1.3km west of the monument, and a barrow bowl cemetery on Bully Hill (NHLE 1017878), located around 2km east of the monument. In addition, a Bronze Age round barrow (AMIE 1043099) has been recorded approximately 265m west of the long barrow (not 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 long barrow north-east of Stonepit Covert was first identified as part of the National Mapping Programme in the 1990s and in an article by Dilwyn Jones for the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society (Jones, 1998). Our understanding was increased by an aerial photographic (AP) survey carried out as part of the Lincolnshire Long Barrows Project in 2018.

Details

PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: A long barrow lying to the west of Tathwell and north of New Lane, approximately 387m north-east of Stonepit Covert. The site lies on a north facing slope of a dry valley, a tributary of the River Lud, at approximately 90m AOD.

DESCRIPTION: The Neolithic long barrow is visible as cropmarks and soil marks on air photographs. It is defined as an oval ditched enclosure elongated north-west to south-east with maximum dimensions measuring 21.3m by 17.9m. There is no evidence of an internal mound.

Valuable archaeological deposits will be preserved 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 may also retain environmental evidence illustrating the nature of the contemporary landscape in which the monument was set.

Medieval or post-medieval boundary banks are mapped to the immediate east of the long barrow and to the south and north. Medieval ridge and furrow cultivation is recorded across the northern part of the field and numerous chalk pits have been mapped in the area. None of these archaeological features form part of this scheduling.

EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: The scheduling includes the full extent of the long barrow plus a 5m buffer zone around it, considered necessary for the support and preservation of the monument.

Sources

Books and journals
Last, J, Beyond the Grave, New Perspectives on Barrows, (2007)
Field, D, Earthen Long Barrows, The Earliest Monuments in the British Isles, (2006)
Woodward, A, British Barrows A Matter of Life and Death, (2000)
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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