The four criteria for assessing class importance apply to burnt mounds as follows:
- Period (currency): Long-lived. Radiocarbon dates for burnt mounds, although few in number, cover a thousand year time-span during the second millenium BC. The period of use of individual sites is not well documented. Indications are that sites were abandoned once the mound material began to encroach upon the trough. The length of time that this process represents is difficult to calculate in the absence of detailed information concerning the intensity and continuity of activity. However, the sheer quantity of burnt stones and the numerous identifiable layers that can be be recognized in section suggests that some at least were used for long periods.
- Rarity: Rare. Around 100 burnt mounds have been recorded to date. These occur in two major concentrations in the New Forest and around the Birmingham area, with outliers in Dorset, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and East Anglia. The number of burnt mounds recorded and the distribution pattern they reflect are a direct result of the intensity of archaeological field work. New sites outside the recorded areas are likely to be discovered as a result of the effects of drainage, agricultural activity, road widening and the natural erosion of stream beds.
- Diversity (types): Medium. In England there is little indication of the existence of regional types within this monument class. In general terms the ground plans of burnt mounds in all areas belong to one of the three types defined above. The significance of these in functional terms cannot be assessed on the basis of current evidence. Excavations have produced very little evidence for variation in sub-surface features. All burnt mounds seem to be associated with both troughs and hearths. Changes in the structure or function of sites might be detected from a consideration of sites located in different topographic situations (eg. near sources of swiftly running water or away from streams in boggy ground). A consideration of the differences between sites which appear to occur in isolation as against those known to be located within or peripheral to settlement areas might also prove to be of value.
- Period (representativity): High. Burnt mounds represent one of a fairly restricted range of monument classes known to characterize the early to late Bronze Age period, and are among the few classes whose construction and use spans the period. As a class, however, they are rather poorly understood.
Assigning scores to these criteria following the system set out in the Monument Evaluation Manual, burnt mounds yield a Class Importance Value of 38. This lies just over mid-way up the range of possible values (max.= 64). Sites representing each of the main types described above, those located in different topographical situations, and a range of both isolated burnt mounds and those associated with settlements should be included in the sample of nationally important examples.