Summary
Neolithic long barrow surviving as a cropmark and soilmark.
Reasons for Designation
The long barrow 940m NNW of Mount Pleasant is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Survival: as a clearly defined crop 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 barrow was constructed;
* Period: as one of very few monument types dating to the early prehistoric, 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 Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary sites associated with the prehistoric trackway now formalised as High Street, including the three separately scheduled bowl barrows about 840m to the south. These associations pose wider questions regarding the ritual significance of this area and the settlement patterns of the societies who constructed the monuments.
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 existence of the long barrow 940m NNW of Mount Pleasant was first noted as a result of aerial reconnaissance in 1977 when it appeared in photographs as a cropmark site showing evidence for an infilled sub-rectangular ditch with convex ends. The site was subsequently the subject of a magnetometer survey which confirmed the findings of the aerial photography. In 1993 the site was investigated by archaeologists in advance of the construction of the Skitter to Hatton gas pipeline. Limited excavation confirmed that the site was a Neolithic long barrow enclosed by a quarry ditch between about 4m and 7m wide from which a large quantity of prehistoric and Romano-British pottery was recovered. The ditch had been recut twice, indicating that the monument continued to be a focus of attention and activity long after its initial construction, as also demonstrated by the wide date range of pottery fragments. Large pieces of flint and chalk blocks found in the original ditch cut and in the first recut give evidence for the method of construction. A further ditch 0.33m deep by 1.1m wide was located beyond the quarry ditch to the north east. This was thought to represent an independent structure predating the final recut. A substantial feature containing evidence of burning was recorded at the centre of the monument but was not excavated. No material suitable for radiocarbon dating was recovered, but the form of the monument together with the relative dating provided by the pottery indicate that the barrow was constructed in the later Neolithic period. Environmental samples taken at the time of the excavation suggested that the monument was constructed in an area of open grassland which subsequently became colonised by scrub vegetation. The site is now preserved under redeposited soil and, while there has been limited disturbance as a result of the archaeological investigations, the southern portion of the barrow in which funerary activity would have been concentrated, is untouched. The long barrow was first scheduled in 1996.
Details
Principal elements
A Neolithic long barrow defined by an oval ditch with a compacted mound in the centre both evident as crop marks. The barrow is located approximately 154m AOD overlooking the valley of the Nettleton Beck, about 900m WNW of Rothwell Top Farm and 200m west of High Street. The ground is fairly level and slopes very gently to the east to the crest of the hill.
Details
The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow which is visible as cropmarks on air photographs centred at grid reference TF 1298 9803. The feature is defined by an oval ditch, elongated north-west to south-east and measuring 36.3m by 20.8m. Photography shows a faint compacted centre, representing the mound, but no earthwork is visible on height data or digital elevation models derived from the Structure from Motion of specialist oblique photography (2016). The Skitter to Hatton gas pipeline passed directly through the site in 1993 but the cropmark of the barrow still shows through the pipeline cropmark, suggesting a level of sub-surface survival.
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 is one of a number of Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary sites associated with the prehistoric trackway now formalised as High Street.
Extent of Scheduling
The scheduled area includes a 5m boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.
