Long barrows are a style of monument constructed across Western Europe in the 5th and 4th millennia BCE, during the Early Neolithic period, typically made from earth and either timber or stone. Those using stone represent the oldest widespread tradition of stone construction in the world. Around 40,000 long barrows survive today.
The structures have a long earthen tumulus or "barrow" that is flanked on two sides with linear ditches. These typically stretch for between 20 and 70 metres in length, although some exceptional examples are either longer or shorter than this. Some examples have a timber or stone chamber in one end of the tumulus. These monuments often contained human remains interred within their chambers and thus are often interpreted as tombs, although there are some examples where this appears not to be the case. The choice of timber or stone may have arisen from the availability of local materials rather than cultural differences. Those that contained chambers inside of them are often termed chambered long barrows while those which lack chambers are instead called unchambered long barrows or earthen long barrows.
The earliest examples developed in Iberia and western France during the mid-5th millennium BCE. The tradition then spread northwards, into the British Isles and then the Low Countries and southern Scandinavia. Each area developed its own variations of the long barrow tradition, often exhibiting their own architectural innovations. The purpose and meaning of the barrows remain an issue of debate among archaeologists. One argument is that they are religious sites, perhaps erected as part of a system of ancestor veneration or as a religion spread by missionaries or settlers. An alternative explanation views them primarily in economic terms, as territorial markers delineating the areas controlled by different communities as they transitioned toward farming.
Communities continued to use these long barrows long after their construction. In both the Roman period and the Early Middle Ages, many long barrows were reused as cemeteries. Since the 16th century they have attracted interest from antiquarians and archaeologists. Some have been reconstructed and have become tourist attractions or sacred sites used for rituals by modern pagan and other religious groups.
Terminology and definition
Given their dispersal across Western Europe, long barrows have been given different names in the various different languages of this region. The term barrow is a southern English dialect word for an earthen tumulus, adopted as a scholarly term by 17th-century English antiquarian John Aubrey. Synonyms found in other parts of Britain included low in Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Derbyshire, tump in Gloucestershire and Hereford, howe in Northern England and Scotland, and cairn in Scotland. Another term to have achieved international usage has been dolmen, a Breton word meaning "table-stone"; this is typically used in reference to the stone chambers found in some, although not all, long barrows. Early 20th-century archaeologists began to call these monuments chambered tombs. Roy and Lesley Adkins refer to these monuments as megalithic long barrows.
Historian Ronald Hutton suggests that such sites could also be termed "tomb-shrines" to reflect the fact that they appear to have often been used both to house the remains of the dead and to have been used in ritual activities. Some contain no burials while others have been found to contain the remains of up to 50 people.
Chambered and earthen
In most cases, local stone was used where it was available. The decision as to whether a long barrow used wood or stone appears to have been based largely on the availability of resources. The style of the chamber falls into two categories. One form, known as grottes sepulchrales artificielles in French archaeology, is dug into the earth. The second form, which is more widespread, is known as cryptes dolmeniques in French archaeology and involved the chamber being erected above ground. Many chambered long barrows contained side chambers within them, often producing a cruciform shape. Others had no such side alcoves; these are known as undifferentiated tombs.
Some long barrows do not contain chambers inside of them. John Thurnham terms these "unchambered" barrows, while Stuart Piggott favours the term "earthen" barrows. Ian Kinnes uses the term "non-megalithic barrows". These long barrows might have used timber because stone was not available. Some classification systems, such as that employed by the United Kingdom's National Monuments Record, do not distinguish between the different types of long barrow.
Archaeologist David Field notes that drawing typological distinctions on the basis of material used can mask important similarities between different long barrows. Also criticising the focus on classification, archaeologists David Lewis-Williams and David Pearce believe that doing so distracts scholars from the task of explaining the meaning and purpose behind the monuments.
Design and architecture Long barrows are single mounds, usually of earth, which are flanked by ditches. They are usually between 20 and 70 metres in length, although there are some exceptional examples at either end of this spectrum. Construction in the Early Neolithic would have required the co-operation of many people and would have represented an important investment in time and resources. They were built without the use of metal tools. There is often regional variation in style and material. In the north and west of Britain, for instance, long barrows often consist of stone mounds containing chambers inside of them, whereas in the south and east of Britain these long barrows are typically made of earth.
Many were altered and restyled over their long period of use. Ascertaining at what date a long barrow was constructed is difficult for archaeologists as a result of the various modifications that were made to the monument during the Early Neolithic. Similarly, both modifications and later damage can make it difficult to determine the nature of the original long barrow design.
Architecturally, there is much overlap between long barrows and other monument types from Neolithic Europe, such as the bank barrows, cursus monuments, long cairns, and mortuary enclosures. Bank barrows are stylistically similar to the long barrows but are considerably longer. Cursus monuments also exhibit parallel ditches, but also extend over much longer distances than the long barrows. Enviro-archaeological studies have demonstrated that many of the long barrows were erected in wooded landscapes. In Britain, these chambered long barrows are typically located on prominent hills and slopes, in particular being located above rivers and inlets and overlooking valleys. In Britain, long barrows were also often constructed near to causewayed enclosures, a form of earthen monument.
Distribution and chronology
Across Europe, about 40,000 long barrows are known to survive from the Early Neolithic. They are found across much of Western Europe; stretching from southeast Spain up to southern Sweden and taking in the British Isles to the west. The long barrows are not the world's oldest known structures using stone—they are predated by Göbekli Tepe in modern Turkey—but they do represent the oldest widespread tradition of using stone in construction. Archaeologist Frances Lynch describes them as "the oldest built structures in Europe" to survive, while Field notes that they are the earliest monuments surviving in Britain. Although found across this large area, they can be subdivided into clear regionalised traditions based on architectural differences.
Excavation has revealed that some of the long barrows in the area of modern Spain, Portugal, and western France were erected in the mid-5th millennium BCE, making these older than those long barrows further north. Although the general area in which the oldest long barrows were built is therefore known, archaeologists do not know exactly where the tradition started nor which long barrows are the very first ones to have been built. It therefore appears that the architectural tradition developed in this southern area of Western Europe before spreading north, along the Atlantic coast. The tradition had reached Britain by the first half of the 4th millennium BCE, either soon after farming or in some cases perhaps just before it. It later spread further north on mainland Europe, for instance arriving in the Netherlands in the second half of the fourth millennium BCE.
Later in the Neolithic, burial practices tended to place greater emphasis on the individual, suggesting a growing social hierarchy and a move away from collective burial. One of the last chambered tombs erected was Bryn Celli Ddu in Anglesey, Wales, built long after people stopped building them across most of Western Europe. The conscious anachronism of the monument led excavators to suggest that its construction was part of a deliberate attempt by people to restore older religious practices that were extinct elsewhere.
Hutton suggests that this tradition "defines the Early Neolithic of Western Europe" more than any other, while Field describes them as "among the best known and easily recognised archaeological monuments in the [British] landscape." Caroline Malone states the long barrows are "some of the most impressive and aesthetically distinctive constructions of prehistoric Britain". Her fellow archaeologist Frances Lynch states these long barrows "can still inspire awe, wonder and curiosity even in modern populations familiar with Gothic cathedrals and towering skyscrapers."
Regional variation
In the area of southern Spain, Portugal, southwestern France, and Brittany, the long barrows typically include large stone chambers. In Britain, earthen long barrows predominate across much of the southern and eastern parts of the island. Around 300 earthen long barrows are known from across the eastern side of Britain, from Aberdeenshire in the north down to the South Downs in the south, with two projections westward into Dorset and Galloway. Excavation suggests that these earthen long barrows were likely constructed between 3800 and 3000 BCE.
Another prominent regional tradition in Britain is the Cotswold-Severn Group found in the west of the island. These are typically chambered long barrows, and contained human bone in comparatively large quantities, averaging between 40 and 50 people in each.
The long barrows found in the Netherlands and northern Germany also used stone in their construction where it was available. The examples of long barrows found in parts of Poland are also typically earthen rather than megalithic. Further north, in Denmark and southern Sweden, the long barrows typically used stone in their construction.
Function
The purpose and meaning of Early Neolithic long barrows are not known, though archaeologists can make suggestions on the basis of recurring patterns that can be observed within the tradition. Archaeologists have not, however, agreed upon the most likely meaning and purpose of these monuments, with various different interpretations being put forward. Lynch suggests that the long barrows likely had "broad religious and social roles" for the communities who built and used them, comparing them in this way to the churches of medieval and modern Europe.
Funerary spaces