The Lost Long Barrows of Leicestershire and Rutland: searching for the archaeological landscape of Neolithic Leicestershire and Rutland

This project re-evaluates human exploitation of the Leicestershire and Rutland region in the Neolithic, addressing especially the region's apparent lack of Early Neolithic long barrows, whose construction coincided with the emergence of farming in Britain c.4000-3500BCE.

These enigmatic monuments are long mounds of earth, turf, timber and/or stone, often containing chambers and burials. Whilst approximately 500 are known in Britain and Ireland, currently none have been confirmed in Leicestershire or Rutland, despite its clay and limestone geology forming a contiguous region with the Cotswolds and Lincolnshire Wolds where stone-chambered and earthen long barrows respectively are found.

The presence of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure, at Husbands Bosworth, demonstrates that monument building was taking place in the study region, and correlations between causewayed enclosures and long barrows are well attested elsewhere.

Destruction by intensive farming of the Midlands since the Medieval period may explain the apparent absence of long barrows. However, this ploughing, and its subsequent conversion to pasture, has left extensive ridge and furrow earthworks which survive across Leicestershire and Rutland as linear patterns in the landscape. Settlement features such as field systems often respect or reuse earlier monuments, so, excitingly these field patterns offer an opportunity to model settlement and ritual spaces, and predict potential long barrow sites, when considered within the regional context of Neolithic monument distributions.

The project will utilize a synthetic approach, using existing published and unpublished data, ongoing community archaeology generated data and fieldwork; it will employ GIS and predictive modelling, and aims to establish a database and methodology for future use.

In particular the research aims to address The East Midlands Historic Environment Research Framework priority "3.6.2: Why were some monument types, such as causewayed enclosures, long cairns and henges, constructed in some areas but not others?" The research also aims to contribute to understanding of the environmental and cultural impacts of the introduction of farming and to wider debates over heritage and landscape policies, including 'nature' and 'rewilding', through a better understanding of the historic contexts of landscape creation in the Neolithic.