Smythe’s Megalith

Smythe’s Megalith, also known as the Warren Farm Chamber, was a chambered long barrow near the village of Aylesford in the south-eastern English county of Kent. Probably constructed in the 4th millennium BCE, during Britain’s Early Neolithic period, it was discovered in 1822. It consisted of a roughly rectangular earthen tumulus with a stone chamber in its eastern end. Human remains were deposited into this chamber. Archaeologists have established that the monument was built by pastoralist communities shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe.

About Smythe’s Megalith in brief

Smythe’s Megalith, also known as the Warren Farm Chamber, was a chambered long barrow near the village of Aylesford in the south-eastern English county of Kent. Probably constructed in the 4th millennium BCE, during Britain’s Early Neolithic period, it was discovered in 1822. Built out of earth and at least five local sarsen megaliths, it consisted of a roughly rectangular earthen tumulus with a stone chamber in its eastern end. Human remains were deposited into this chamber. Archaeologists have established that the monument was built by pastoralist communities shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe. The site may have been ransacked during the Middle Ages, as other Medway Megaliths were. By the early 19th century it was buried beneath soil, largely due to millennia of hillwash coming down from the adjacent Blue Bell Hill. It was discovered by farm labourers ploughing the land; the local antiquarians Clement Smythe and Thomas Charles were called in to examine it. Shortly after, the labourers pulled away the stones and dispersed most of the human remains, destroying the monument. The location where it was found lies in a large field now to the east of the A229 dual carriageway. Nothing of the monument can now be seen and the specific location cannot be publicly accessed. The early Neolithic was a revolutionary period of British history. Between 4500 and 3800 BCE, it saw a widespread change in lifestyle as the communities living in the British Isles adopted agriculture as their primary form of subsistence.

This came about through contact with continental European societies, although it is unclear to what extent this can be attributed to an influx of migrants or to indigenous Mesolithic Britons adopting agricultural technologies from the continent. The region of modern Kent would have been key for the arrival of continental European settlers and visitors, because of its position on the estuary of the River Thames. Britain was then largely forested; widespread forest clearance did not occur in Kent until the Late Bronze Age. Environmental data from the vicinity of the White Horse Stone, a putatively prehistoric monolith near the River Medway, supports the idea that the area was still largelyForested in the Early Neoliths. Throughout most of Britain, there is little evidence of cereal or permanent dwellings from this period, leading archaeologists to believe that the island’s early economy was largely pastoral, relying on herding cattle, with people living a nomadic or semi-nomadic life. The long barrows often served as tombs, although others were built using large stones, now known as “megaliths” Although there are predate modern stone buildings—like Göbekli Tepe in Turkey—which constitute the architectural tradition of long barrowing buildings, they predate them in most of Western Europe, taking in most from southeastern Spain up to southern Sweden, taking most in the first half of the fourth millennium BCE. Several of these still survive: Coldrum Long Barrow, Addington Long Barrows, and Chestnuts Long Bar row, and Kit’s Coty House.

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