During my recent trip to Cornwall, I was alerted to some odd activity going on at several of the sites in the area.

Earlier this year, I'd been told of, and indeed discovered for myself some stakes buried at various sites. These stakes were lengths of 2x1 timber, about a foout to 18 inches long, with three nails embedded in the end. they had been embedded to their full length so that only the very top of the stake was vibile in the grass. Boscawen-Un, merry Maidens, Sancreed, Men an Tol, Men Scryfa and Boskednan were all attacked in this way. Each stake had a Christian inscription written on it. It was decided at the time to not make this public, for fear of copycat attacks.

At Men an Tol last month, I was checking the ground near the stones for any repeat when I saw what appeared to be a bottle top. Closer inspection revealed what appeared to be a buried bottle. I left it, and contacted CAPSN (http://www.cornishancientsites.com) to report the matter.

I was told that they knew exactly what it was, and had removed a similar item the day before. So this was a new one.

The item in question was a resin 'talisman'. The resin was a conical shape (hence my mis-identification as a buried bottle), with seeds, pieces of wire and other 'new age mumbo jumbo' items embedded in the resin.

CASPN have now removed these and are building up a nice little collection of articles removed from sites after being buried. They have asked my to raise the matter here to:
a) now publicise that this kind of thing is going on - it's not just Christian attacks on pagan sites, but also appears to be (so called) pagans damaging the archaeology,
b) to ask that any similar damage is reported - do NOT attempt to remove such items yourself (many of the sites have a granite information block advertising a phone number by which damage can be reported) ,
c) to ask if any other areas of the country have been similarly affected? and
d) to ask if anyone has any ideas as to how to educate the morons that do this kind of thing?

I personally doubt that it's locals involved - I know how much the sites and the history mean to those that live in the area.

For details of these, and other attacks on sites in the area, see http://www.cornishancientsites.com/damage-report.htm