Neolithic long barrow or mortuary enclosure with Bronze Age round barrow, 80m south of Dally Acre Bottom

Summary

The site of a Neolithic long barrow or mortuary enclosure which is visible as cropmarks and soilmarks shown in aerial photography. It is trapezoidal in shape, aligned roughly north-west by south-east.

Reasons for Designation

The Neolithic long barrow or mortuary enclosure 80m south of Dally Acre Bottom is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
 
* Survival: as a Prehistoric long barrow visible as a clearly defined cropmark;
* Potential: for the buried 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, 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 us insight into the lives and deaths of early prehistoric communities in this country:

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 crop marks 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 Neolithic long barrow or mortuary enclosure 80m south of Dally Acre Bottom, was first identified from aerial photographs (APs) as part of a recording programme in 1999/2000. The feature is visible as cropmarks and soil marks which suggest a Neolithic long barrow that was later modified in the Bronze Age.

Details

PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: a Neolithic long barrow or mortuary enclosure aligned roughly north-west by south-east following the contours of the land. The site is located on a spur of land on the south side of a valley overlooking the River Bain and the plantation of Dally Acre Bottom at 110m AOD.

DESCRIPTION: the Neolithic long barrow or mortuary enclosure is visible on aerial photographs (APs) as a trapezoidal feature measuring 50.5m long and 25m wide and orientated north-west to south-east with the broader end to the south-east facing down the valley. The evidence from APs suggests that the broader south-east end could have been re-worked in the Bronze Age to form a round barrow. The round barrow is now visible as a ring ditch with a diameter of 16m.

Located adjacent to the long barrow are a number of square pits, of uncertain date, four of which are in pairs located to the north-east and east of the barrow. There is a single pit lying inside the ditched enclosure of the long barrow at the north-west end. Given the pits concentrate in or around the barrow, it is possible they are associated.

Valuable deposits will be preserved on the buried ground surface, in the fills of the ditch and the square pits. 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 may also retain environmental evidence illustrating the nature of the contemporary landscape in which the monument was set.

EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. The scheduling includes a 5 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Sources

Books and journals
Field, D, Earthen Long Barrows, The Earliest Monuments in the British Isles (2006),
Last, J, Beyond the Grave, New Perspectives on Barrows (2007),
Jones, D, Long Barrows and Neolithic Elongated Enclosures in Lincolnshire: An Analysis of the Air Photographic Evidence. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 64, 1998, pp83-114 (1998), 83-114
Woodward, A, British Barrows A Matter of Life and Death (2000),

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