Details

The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located
135m above sea level below the summit of a plateau overlooking the valley of
the River Bain to the west, c.300m south east of Flint Hill House. While the
monument cannot be seen on the ground, it has been recorded as a cropmark on
aerial photographs. The cropmark represents an elongated, slightly wedge
shaped mound which has been degraded by ploughing. It is aligned north west-
south east approximately 50m by 22m. Material for the mound would have been
quarried from an encircling ditch which is now infilled. The north western end
of this ditch is slightly convex while the narrower, south eastern end is
broken by a causeway. A thickening of the plan of the ditches in the longer
sides is thought to indicate recutting, suggesting that the long barrow
remained a focus of attention over a long period of time. The north western
end of the ditch is slightly convex in plan, while the narrower, south eastern
end is broken by a causeway. The form of the ditch is thought to represent a
more elaborate type of long barrow which may have been constructed for a
particular group or class within Neolithic society.
The monument is one of a number of long barrows associated with the valley of
the River Bain and with a prehistoric trackway, the course of which runs some
250m to the south west, overlain by Roman and modern roads.

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 the Neolithic long barrow south east of Flint Hill House has been
degraded by ploughing, rare archaeological deposits will be retained on and in
the buried ground surface and within the fills of the ditch. These will
contain valuable information relating to the dating and construction of the
barrow and the sequence of mortuary ritual at the site. Environmental
evidence preserved in the same deposits will contain information on the nature
of the landscape in which the monument was constructed and used.
The monument is one of a number of Neolithic and Bronze Age barrows associated
with the River Bain and with the adjacent prehistoric trackway. These
associations demonstrate the ritual significance of the location and pose
wider questions concerning communication routes. The frequency of these
monuments also has implications for the study of prehistoric demography and
settlement patterns.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Burl, A, The Stonehenge People, (1989), 30
Other
discussions, Jones, D, (1995)
oblique monochrome photographs, Everson, P, 2974/15-18, (1979)

Source: Historic England