Details

The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located
135m above sea level on the eastern side of the Rase Valley, some 300m ENE of
Bully Hill Farm. Although it cannot be seen on the ground, the monument is
clearly visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs. The oblong enclosure is
aligned east-west and is completely delineated and encircled by an infilled
ditch measuring approximately 56m long by 30m wide. It is thought that this
unbroken ditch form represents the simpler type of Lincolnshire long barrow in
which the enclosure set aside for mortuary activities was not elaborated by
the construction of a large earthwork mound. Structures associated with these
activities will survive as buried features within the enclosure. It is
situated approximately 50m from High Street, which originated as a prehistoric
trackway, and it is one of a number of Neolithic and Bronze Age burial mounds
associated with the valley of the River Rase, including Bully Hill bowl barrow
which is located approximately 300m to the south east and which is the subject
of a separate scheduling.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 5 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Long barrows were constructed as earthen or drystone mounds, generally with
flanking ditches. They acted as funerary monuments during the Early and Middle
Neolithic periods (3400-2400 BC), representing the burial places of Britain's
early farming communities, and as such are amongst the oldest field monuments
surviving in the present landscape. Where investigated, long barrows appear to
have been used for communal burial, often with only parts of the human remains
having been selected for interment. Certain sites provide evidence for several
phases of funerary activities preceding the construction of the barrow mound,
including ditched enclosures containing structures related to various rituals
of burial. It is probable, therefore, that long barrows acted as important
spiritual sites for their local communities over considerable periods of time.
The long barrows of the Lincolnshire Wolds and their adjacent regions 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. More than 60
examples of this type of monument are known; a small number of these survive
as earthworks, but the great majority of sites are known as cropmarks and
soilmarks recorded on aerial photographs where no mound is evident at the
surface.
Not all Lincolnshire long barrows include mounds. Current limited
understanding of the processes of Neolithic mortuary ritual in Lincolnshire is
that the large barrow mound represents the final phase of construction which
was not reached by all mortuary monuments. Many of the sites where only the
ditched enclosure is known have been interpreted as representing monuments
which had fully evolved mounds, but in which the mound itself has been
degraded or removed by subsequent agricultural activity. In a minority of
cases, however, the ditched enclosure will represent a monument which never
developed a burial mound.
As a distinctive regional grouping of one of the few types of Neolithic
monuments known, these sites are of great value. They were all in use over a
great period of time and are thus highly representive of changing cultures of
the peoples who built and maintained them. All forms of long barrow on the
Lincolnshire Wolds and its adjacent regions are therefore considered to be of
national importance and all examples with significant surviving remains are
considered worthy of protection.

Although Bully Hill long barrow has been degraded by ploughing the buried
ground surface and the fills of the ditch will retain rare archaeological
information relating to its dating and construction and to the sequence of
burial ritual at the site. Environmental evidence preserved in these deposits
will illustrate the nature of the landscape in which the monument was set.
Bully Hill long barrow is one of a number of Neolithic and Bronze Age burial
sites associated with the valley of the River Rase and with the prehistoric
trackway now formalised as High Street. These associations pose wider
questions regarding the ritual significance of this area and the settlement
patterns of the societies who constructed the monuments.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Phillips, C W, 'Archaeologia' in Excavation of Giants' Hills Long Barrow, Skendleby, Lincs., , Vol. 85, (1936), 37-106
Other
discussion, Jones, D, (1995)
oblique monochrome photograph, St Joseph, J K, BZU 9, (1976)

Source: Historic England