It's been a while since this one reared it's head.
I just did a quick search, and there's quite a few here with zero info on them. Is it still a case of 'How can they be proved to be prehistoric'?
I don't know about the rest of the world, but on my patch there's loads of places that could have had significance to pehistoric people, but if they were all on tma, it'd look a bit silly, as there's very little to see, or say, other than "It's called the Holy well, so it might be holy...". There are a couple with traditions of pin deposition, in which case it depends on whether you think such folklore alone is sufficient to merit provenance. There are also (up here in Northumberland at least...) wells which have produced votive offerings in the form of bronze swords etc. Which would convince me that the spot had significance to the ancient people of the area. But I wouldn't want to see them advertised as it might encourage that unpleasant type of looter/metal detectorist who doesn't give a shit about wrecking stratigraphy in order to turn a quick profit. Then there's things like this: http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/8006 which was probably a well in IA times and may have been adopted by the romans, but it's recorded sanctity can only be traced back to the Anglo Saxon kingdoms.
If you're going to be pedantic, you can argue that implied prehistoric significance is not equivalent to actual prehistoric significance, and in the absence of recorded finds, I can't see how wells can ever be proved to have such significance.
I suspect (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that the fact that the question has been raised again implies that the Eds are considering purging the wells, and whilst i'm not generally bothered about them, part of me thinks it would be a shame to lose the data from the web for those who do like them.
Send all the data to Goffik, then delete them, so he'll be forced to finish his website ;)
