Neolithic long cairn in Yorkshire given extra protection after walkers remove stones

The Guardian

2 days ago

A rare and remarkable 5,000-year-old monument that is an example of one of the earliest visible structures in England is to receive extra protection because walkers, sometimes innocently, have been removing and moving stones.
The Dudderhouse Hill long cairn in the Yorkshire Dales has been granted 'scheduled monument' status by the government, making it a site of national importance with greater legal protection.
The long cairn is remarkable in many ways and helps us understand the lives, deaths and beliefs of the first farming communities, said Paul Jeffery, the national listings manager at Historic England, which has advised the government. 'This time was the beginning of everything.'
To the untrained eye Dudderhouse Hill may look like a large pile of stones in the middle of nowhere and that helps explain the often unintentional damage, said Jeffery.
The long cairn, near the village of Austwick in North Yorkshire, dates from about 3,400-2,400BC and is one of the oldest visible reminders of our prehistoric past. It is thought to be one of the first structures communally constructed by humans.
Jeffery said: 'The fact it has survived at all demonstrates how well constructed it was and how monumental in the landscape back in its time.'
The long cairn, which was built by a Neolithic farming community who were the successors to hunter-gatherers and lived in caves and stone huts, may have had a number of purposes.
One of those was funerary, as a 'home for the dead', although not for whole bodies. Evidence suggests the deceased were left to the birds and elements before body parts were ritualistically interred in the monument.
Long cairns may also have been positioned, like Stonehenge, to help communities know when seasons started and ended.
Another function of the long cairn was to say 'this is our land', said Jeffery. 'Building a structure like that would have taken a lot of people a significant amount of time. They would have had to be fed by others, there would have been specialist stonemasons and engineers – a lot of effort would have been invested into those structures. They are a statement of 'this is us', 'we are here'.'
Research suggests the long cairn was used as an animal pen in the 16th century and in more recent years has been damaged by people removing and moving stones, sometimes innocently to create way markers for walkers.
'The problem is this causes sustained and considerable damage over time,' said Jeffery. 'People might only be taking one stone and don't realise the harm they're doing. If it was left unchecked, eventually the evidence for its existence would be lost completely.'
Scheduled monument status means the long cairn will receive the highest level of protection available and means the national park authority can carry out a project to educate people about the site's importance.
Duncan Wilson, the chief executive of Historic England, said: 'Scheduling this remarkable neolithic long cairn ensures that this rare and fragile piece of our prehistoric heritage receives the protection it deserves.'