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BBC News
6 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Protected status given to 5000-year-old Yorkshire Dales monument
A 5,000-year-old prehistoric monument in the Yorkshire Dales National Park has been granted protected status to help prevent any future Dudderhouse Hill long cairn has been designated a Scheduled Monument, meaning it is legally protected against unauthorised back to the Neolithic age - approximately 3400 to 2400 BC - long cairns are considered to have been some of the first structures constructed by communities of Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, said scheduling the "remarkable Neolithic long cairn" would ensure this "rare and fragile piece of our prehistoric heritage receives the protection it deserves". Currently, the Dudderhouse Hill long cairn survives as a partly turf-covered oval mound of stones, about 23m (75ft) long, 12m (39m) wide and 1m (3ft) high."It doesn't look particularly impressive and that's one of the problems," Paul Jeffery, Historic England's national listings manager, said. "Nearby, about 70m (230ft) away, there's a cairn where people have added stones over time."Unfortunately, because they don't realise that this is such an important site, some people walking past pick up stones from what they think is just this pile and then add them to the other cairn and obviously that causes harm." However, Mr Jeffrey added the monument was far from just a pile of stones. "When you stand next to it, look out at the views and you realise that it's the remains of burial chambers that's lasted so long, then it's much more impressive," he listings manager explained the monument had been built at a time where hunter gatherers were settling down and becoming early farmers. "This is really one of the first monuments built by a community in the country and some of the first in Europe," he said."This would have been a big monument that people would have recognised and said 'somebody lives there and somebody values this place'." As a Scheduled Monument, the Dudderhouse Hill long cairn will now receive the highest level of heritage protection available in Wilson said: "What makes this discovery particularly significant is that it belongs to a small group of recently identified long cairns in the Yorkshire Dales, an area where these monuments were once thought to be absent."The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority would now be able to put up signage explaining the site's importance. The protected status could also attract grant funding to ensure the monument's maintenance for another 5,000 years. Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Neolithic long cairn in Yorkshire given extra protection after walkers remove stones
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.'
