Wayland's Smithy
The long barrow entrance
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 Map showing location in Oxfordshire
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| Location | near Ashbury |
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| Region | Oxfordshire England |
| Coordinates | 51°34′2.02″N 1°35′42.95″W / 51.5672278°N 1.5952639°WCoordinates: 51°34′2.02″N 1°35′42.95″W / 51.5672278°N 1.5952639°W |
| Type | long barrow and chamber tomb |
| History | |
| Periods | Neolithic |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1962-63 |
| Archaeologists | Stuart Piggott |
| Condition | Restored |
| Public access | Yes |
| Website | English Heritage |
| Designated | 1882 |
| Reference no. | PRN7306 |
Wayland's Smithy is a Neolithic long barrow and chamber tomb site located near the Uffington White Horse and Uffington Castle, at Ashbury in the English county of Oxfordshire. It is very near to The Ridgeway, an ancient road running along the Berkshire Downs.
Archaeologists have established that the monument was built by pastoralist communities shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe. Although representing part of an architectural tradition of long barrow building that was widespread across Neolithic Europe, Wayland's Smithy belongs to a localised regional variant of barrows produced in the south-west of Britain, now known as the Severn-Cotswold group. Of these, it is in one of the best surviving conditions.
The later mound was 185 feet (56 m) long and 43 feet (13 m) wide at the south end. Its present appearance is the result of restoration following excavations undertaken by Stuart Piggott and Richard Atkinson in 1962–63. They demonstrated that the site had been built in two different phases, a timber-chambered oval barrow built around 3590 and 3550 BC and a later stone-chambered long barrow in around 3460 to 3400 BC.
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, abandoning the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that had characterised the preceding Mesolithic period. This came about through contact with continental 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.
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