If you have read anything on ancient Paganism(s) in Britain, you have probably read about the Cerne Abbas Giant, the huge figure made of chalk (crumbled into ditches) with an upraised Hercules-style club and an upright Cernunnos-style penis.
You probably read that he was prehistoric, or at least pre-Roman — although some dissidents claim there was no record of the giant’s existence before the late 1600s CE.
Now archaeologists have been working to date the site, and they are coming up with a different age.
Not so ancient. Medieval.I can accept that sort of dating. Medieval folks had creativity enough to excavate a big figure on a hillside. Pretty deep and likely to last excavation, too. I can even go with the idea that maybe there were traces of some Anglo-Saxon figure to follow.
It also makes sense that the Cerne Abbey might have covered up the giant during its tenure in the area, and that after the Abbey was dissolved, it was restored. Catholic sex negativity…would not care for such a visible attraction.
(I so much want to say that the Giant was an early Cerne craft beer logo. But, no, that would be far to “modern” and anachronistic a thing to say. Pagan fiction.)