page_title: Long barrow
section_title: Antiquarian and archaeological investigation
hierarchical_section_title: Long barrow / Later history / Antiquarian and archaeological investigation
caption_attribution_description: English: An oblique near infrared kite aerial photo of the long Barrow on Selsley Common, The Toots, in Gloucestershire (looking northwards, 720nm filter). Taken in bright sunlight for shadow relief. http://www.armadale.org.uk/aerialthermography.htm
context_page_description: Long barrows are a style of monument constructed across Western Europe in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE, during the Early Neolithic period. Typically constructed from earth and either timber or stone, those using the latter material 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 as a result, 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.
context_section_description: The first serious study of chambered long barrows took place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the mounds that covered chambers were removed by agriculture.
  By the nineteenth century, antiquarians and archaeologists had come to recognise this style of monument as a form of tomb. In the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, archaeologists like V. Gordon Childe held to the cultural diffusionist view that such Western European monuments had been based on tombs originally produced in parts of the eastern Mediterranean region, suggesting that their ultimate origin was either in Egypt or in Crete. In this view, the tradition was seen as having spread westward as part of some form of "megalithic religion".
  A seminal study of the long barrows authored by the Welsh archaeologist Glyn Daniel was published in 1958 as The Megalith Builders of Western Europe.
  In 1950, Daniel stated that about a tenth of known chambered long barrows in Britain had been excavated, while regional field studies helped to list them.
  Few of the earlier excavations recorded or retained any human remains found in the chamber.
  From the 1960s onward, archaeological research increasingly focused on examining regional groups of long barrows rather than the wider architectural tradition. From this decade onward, the meticulous excavation of various long barrows also led to the widespread recognition that long barrows were often multi-phase monuments which had been changed over time.
  Up until the 1970s, archaeologists widely believed that the long barrows of Western Europe were based on Near Eastern models.
  Archaeological investigation of long barrows has been hindered by the misidentification of other features. Long barrows have been confused with coniger mounds and rabbit warrens, sometimes termed pillow mounds, which can take on a similar shape. Rifle butts can also sometimes take on shapes similar to those of long barrows. Later landscaping has also led to misidentification; the two mounds at Stoke Park in Bristol, southwest England were for instance thought to be long barrows until an excavation in the 1950s revealed that they post-dated the Middle Ages, and thus must have been created by more recent landscaping projects. In areas which were previously impacted by glaciation, moraine deposits on valley floors have sometimes been mistaken for long barrows. At Dunham New Park in Cheshire, northwest England, for instance, a mound was initially believed to be a long barrow and only later assessed as a natural feature. Damage sustained by Neolithic long barrows can also lead to them being mistaken for other types of monuments, such as the oval barrows and round barrows which are usually of later date.
  Aerial photography has proven useful in identifying many more examples that are barely visible on the ground.
caption: An aerial photograph of the Selsey Long Barrow in Gloucestershire, southwest England
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