Chestnuts Long Barrow

The Chestnuts Long Barrow is a ruined chambered long barrow located near to the village of Addington in the southeastern English county of Kent. Constructed circa 4000 BCE, during the Early Neolithic period of British prehistory, the Stones represent part of an architectural tradition that was spread across Western Europe during this era. One of the Medway Megaliths constructed in the vicinity of the River Medway, the Addington Long Barrow is located close to five other surviving chambered long barrows: Coldrum Long Barrow, Addington Long Barrow, Kit's Coty House, the Countless Stones and the Coffin Stone.

The tomb was built in an area of extensive earlier Mesolithic activity which had been known from surface spotfinds. When the site was excavated in summer 1957 by its owner, Mr E. Boyle, stratified evidence of Mesolithic settlement was found directly beneath the barrow. Further work was undertaken in 1959 by J Alexander who found sherds of Grimston, Beaker and Peterborough ware as well as flint arrowheads.

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View looking east through the burial chamber

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View looking west across the burial chamber with the facade stones visible on either side

Twelve large sarsen stones remain visible, although badly eroded and damaged. As at the nearby Coldrum Stones the stones had not been set in socket holes by their builders. In plan the tomb was an oblong chamber, oriented east-west and blocked at both ends. It had a facade of four stones, two on either side of the eastern end. The chamber, covered by two capstones, was about 4m by 3m. and just over 2m tall. It was flanked by two large megaliths which dominate the site No evidence of a kerb has been identified and the capstones have since fallen and rest on the ground nearby.

Around 4,800 fragments of burnt bone, representing at least ten adults and one infant, were found in the chamber. The remains of a least three pots (in 50 fragments) also came from the chamber, one with fingernail impression. All were of Neolithic or Early Bronze Age fabric. Sherds of a fourth pot were outside the entrance where the excavators considered it had been ritually smashed were also found. A large barrow once covered the chamber, it has only survived for about a quarter of the perimeter but suggests a total width of around 20m.

Information from the excavation indicated that it was in use in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (c. 1800-1400 B.C.). The barrow was still standing in the late 1st-2nd century A.D., when a small Roman settlement stood next to it. Around the twelfth or thirteenth century, the chamber was systematically turned over, perhaps by treasure hunters. Pits were dug under the stones and the barrow was shovelled away. This caused the chamber to collapse, sealing medieval sherds under the stones. Since then the site has been little disturbed. Boyle re-erected the stones as accurately as he could following his excavation.

The site, along with the Addington long barrow close by is open for public visits by appointment with the landowner.

There is an official website at [1] which details background, location and access to both the Addington Longbarrow and the nearby Chestnuts burial chamber.

Context

The Early Neolithic was a revolutionary period of British history. Beginning in the fifth millennium BCE, it saw a widespread change in lifestyle as the communities living in the British Isles adopted agriculture as their primary form of subsistence, abandoning the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that had characterised the preceding Mesolithic period. Archaeologists have been unable to prove whether this adoption of farming was because of a new influx of migrants coming in from continental Europe or because the indigenous Mesolithic Britons came to adopt the agricultural practices of continental societies. Either way, it certainly emerged through contact with continental Europe, probably as a result of centuries of interaction between Mesolithic people living in south-east Britain and Linear Pottery culture (LBK) communities in north-eastern France. The region of modern Kent would have been a key area for the arrival of continental European settlers and visitors, because of its position on the estuary of the River Thames and its proximity to the continent.

Between 4500 and 3800 BCE, all of the British Isles came to abandon its former Mesolithic hunter-gatherer lifestyle, to be replaced by the new agricultural subsistence of the Neolithic Age. It is apparent that although a common material culture was shared throughout most of the British Isles in this period, there was great regional variation regarding the nature and distribution of settlement, architectural styles, and the use of natural resources. Throughout most of Britain, there is little evidence of cereal or permanent dwellings from this period, leading archaeologists to believe that the Early Neolithic economy on the island was largely pastoral, relying on herding cattle, with people living a nomadic or semi-nomadic way of life. Archaeologists have no direct proof of gender relations on the island at this time, although most believe that it was probably a male-dominated society, in keeping with all recorded societies that practice large-scale animal husbandry. There is archaeological evidence of violence and warfare in Early Neolithic Britain from such archaeological sites as West Kennet Long Barrow and Hambledon Hill, with some groups constructing fortifications to defend themselves from attackers.

Britain was largely forested in this period, although did witness some land clearance. It remains unclear to what extent the Kentish area was deforested in the Early Neolithic, although it appears that widespread forest clearance only took place on the chalklands of south-east Britain much later, in the Late Bronze Age. Environmental data from the area around the White Horse Stone supports the idea that the area was still largely forested in the Early Neolithic, covered by a woodland of oak, ash, hazel/alder and Maloideae.

The tomb building tradition

Across Western Europe, the Early Neolithic marked the first period in which humans built monumental structures in the landscape. These were tombs that held the physical remains of the dead, and though sometimes constructed out of timber, many were built using large stones, now known as "megaliths". Individuals were rarely buried alone in the Early Neolithic, instead being interned in collective burials with other members of their community. The construction of these collective burial monumental tombs, both wooden and megalithic, began in continental Europe before being adopted in Britain in the first half of the fourth millennium BCE.

"It seems that the role of ancestors in Neolithic society was much more important than in the world of the hunter-gatherer. Clans and forebears began to have symbolic importance to the settled farming communities of the Neolithic. Dead ancestors were celebrated through funerals, feasts and grave goods, and their carefully selected body-parts were housed in specially built monuments, often symbolising 'houses' of the dead ... The tombs provide the earliest and most tangible evidence of Neolithic people and their customs, and are some of the most impressive and aesthetically distinctive constructions of prehistoric Britain."

Archaeologist and prehistorian Caroline Malone, 2001.

The Early Neolithic people of Britain placed far greater emphasis on the ritualised burial of the dead than their Mesolithic forebears had done. Many archaeologists have suggested that this is because Early Neolithic people adhered to an ancestor cult that venerated the spirits of the dead, believing that they could intercede with the forces of nature for the benefit of their living descendants. Archaeologist Robin Holgate stressed that rather than simply being tombs, the Medway Megaliths were "communal mouments fulfilling a social function for the communities who built and used them." Thus, it has furthermore been suggested that Early Neolithic people entered into the tombs – which doubled as temples or shrines – to perform rituals that would honour the dead and ask for their assistance. For this reason, historian Ronald Hutton termed these monuments "tomb-shrines" to reflect their dual purpose.

In Britain, these tombs were typically located on prominent hills and slopes overlooking the surrounding landscape, perhaps at the junction between different territories. Archaeologist Caroline Malone noted that the tombs would have served as one of a variety of markers in the landscape that conveyed information on "territory, political allegiance, ownership, and ancestors." Many archaeologists have subscribed to the idea that these tomb-shrines served as territorial markers between different tribal groups, although others have argued that such markers would be of little use to a nomadic herding society. Instead it has been suggested that they represent markers along herding pathways. Many archaeologists have suggested that the construction of such monuments reflects an attempt to stamp control and ownership over the land, thus representing a change in mindset brought about by Neolithicisation. Others have suggested that these monuments were built on sites already deemed sacred by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers.

Archaeologists have differentiated these Early Neolithic tombs into a variety of different architectural styles, each typically associated with a different region within the British Isles. Passage graves, characterised by their narrow passage made of large stones and one or multiple burial chambers covered in earth or stone, were predominantly located in northern Britain and southern and central Ireland. Alternately, across northern Ireland and central Britain long chambered mounds predominated, while in the east and south-east of Britain, earthen long barrows represented the dominant architectural trend. These earthen long barrows were typically constructed of timber because building stone was scarce in southern Britain; archaeologist Aubrey Burl argued that these timber tombs might have been "even more eye-catching" than their stone counterparts, perhaps consisting of "towering carved poles, flamboyantly painted", but that evidence of such sculptures has not survived. The Medway Megaliths represent just one of these regional groups within the wider West European tradition of tomb building in this period.

Folklore and folk tradition

In a 1946 paper published in the Folklore journal, John H. Evans recorded that there was a folk belief in the area that applied to all of the Medway Megaliths and which had been widespread "Up to the last generation"; this was that it was impossible for any human being to successfully count the number of stones in the monuments. This "countless stones" motif is not unique to this particular site, and can be found at various other megalithic monuments in Britain. The earliest textual evidence for it is found in an early sixteenth-century document, where it applies to the stone circle of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, although in an early seventeenth-century document it was being applied to The Hurlers, a set of three stone circles in Cornwall. Later records reveal that it had gained widespread distribution in England, as well as a single occurrence each in Wales and Ireland. The folklorist S.P. Menefee suggested that it could be attributed to an animistic understanding that these megaliths had lives of their own.