Summary
Neolithic long barrow surviving as a cropmark and soilmark.
Reasons for Designation
The long barrow 530m west of Moor Farm is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Survival: as a clearly defined cropmark 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: as one of a number of similar monuments in the area whose associations with the valleys of the Waithe Beck and the River Bain, and with the adjacent prehistoric trackway, indicate the ritual significance of the location. The frequency of these monuments has wider implications for the study of Neolithic demography and settlement patterns in the region. The nearest spatially related scheduled monument is the long barrow 800m south-west of Kirmond Top, which is about 1200m north-west of the Moor Farm barrow.
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 cropmarks (an area of enhanced crop growth caused by higher moisture levels retained by the fills of underlying archaeological features) 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 530m west of Moor Farm was first identified on an aerial photograph of 1979 and was scheduled in 1996. It has not been excavated.
Details
Principal elements
The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located some 135m above sea level below the summit of a broad plateau between the sources of the Waithe Beck and the River Bain. It lies approximately 530m to the west of Moor Farm on a wide expanse of fairly flat land that slopes gently to the north and east.
Description
The barrow cannot be seen on the ground but is clearly visible from the air, centred at TF 1877 9004. It has been recorded on aerial photographs as a cropmark and soilmark in an arable field to the south of a small plantation known as Far Dickey Crook. The barrow is shown as a shallow earthwork on a digital elevation model (DEM) of 2008 and on a 2016 oblique photograph.
The barrow appears as a trapezoidal enclosure aligned east to west with maximum dimensions measuring 35.5m by 23m. The ditch is not thought to be broken by a causeway, a form representing a simpler type of this monument class in which the enclosure set aside for mortuary activities was not elaborated by the construction of a large earthen mound. The internal mound is visible as a soilmark on air photographs and also as a low spread earthwork on DEMs, though in the latter the plough has spread the moundspread so that it is much larger than the footprint of the enclosure, being approximately 39m by 48m. A sunken feature within the centre of the barrow, noted by the aerial photograph assessment, may be geological in nature.
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.
A large rectilinear enclosure of possible Iron Age or Roman date lies immediately to the south of the monument (unscheduled). A number of broad field boundaries are mapped in the vicinity; the alignment of one may suggest that it respects the barrow location. Ridge and furrow cultivation (aligned north-south) has been mapped nearby to the north-west. The long barrow is one of a number of similar monuments associated with the valleys of the Waithe Beck and the River Bain, and with High Street which originated as a prehistoric trackway and which lies approximately 800m to the west.
Extent of Scheduling
The site of the monument includes a 5m boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.
