Details

The monument includes a Neolithic long barrow, 250m north west of Lion's Den
Farm.
Although greatly altered and reduced in height by arable ploughing over the
course of the years, the monument still survives as a slight mound at the
northern edge of a field, and as a low rise in the field boundary which
overlies it. The northern end of the monument is overlain by a modern road.
The barrow is visible as a crop mark on aerial photographs which show that it
has characteristic parallel ditches, measuring 4.5m-6m in width, 15.2m apart
and about 76m in length. The monument is 32.5m in width overall.
In 1984, during repairs to the road the original ground surface beneath the
barrow was exposed, and a carbon sample from sediments exposed produced a
radiocarbon date of 5220 +/- 100 before present.
Post and wire fences, and the paved surface to the modern highway which
overlies the monument's northern end are excluded from the scheduling,
although the ground beneath them is included.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 2 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 with flanking
ditches and acted as funerary monuments during the Early and Middle Neolithic
periods (3400-2400 BC). They represent the burial places of Britain's early
farming communities and, as such, are amongst the oldest field monuments
surviving visibly 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 monument preceding the barrow and,
consequently, it is probable that long barrows acted as important ritual sites
for local communities over a considerable period of time. Some 500 examples of
long barrows and long cairns, their counterparts in the uplands, are recorded
nationally. As one of the few types of Neolithic structure to survive as
earthworks, and due to their comparative rarity, their considerable age and
their longevity as a monument type, all long barrows are considered to be
nationally important.

Although the monument has been reduced in height by arable ploughing, its
parallel ditches and part of the barrow mound still survive beneath the
present day ground surface and are clearly visible as crop marks on aerial
photographs.
Long barrows are a very rare monument type in north east England and the Ling
Howe long barrow represents one of the few surviving examples of this class of
monument in this part of eastern Yorkshire

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
3 B & W prints (HAP 88/1/5-7), Dent, J., (1988)
Humberside SMR, Sites and Monuments Record Sheet, (1996)

Source: Historic England