The point you were making is that the ammonite stone wasn't necessarily "chosen" by the builders and you pointed out that lots of modern visitors miss it when they visit. My point was that it is more likely than not that the builders were aware of the fossil when they chose that particular stone to go in that particular monument. Based on the fact that they were people who were used to examining stone for its textures and properties, it's highly unlikely that they didn't notice it.

I wasn't suggesting prehistoric people were better, or superior, but I am suggesting that they were familiar with their chosen materials. Taking out the ancient people v modern people aspect, if I build a house, I'll be aware of the particular bricks I use to build the walls. But when people come to my house, it's not certain that they will notice. So a visting TMA-er not noticing the ammonite stone isn't really either here or there as to whether the stone was chosen by the builders. :)

Your arrow sounds amazing. It sounds like you made it yourself? I made a fish hook on a course, it wasn't as complicated as that, it had two types of wood and some birch root. But having made it I can imagine that you had 'to go to various places to fetch the materials for your arrow, for the nettles and the resin and the flint and the wood and the feather and the bluebells, it's a lot of different places, a lot of input of time and effort, and you can remember where you got those things perhaps. And when you'd got them, you had to know what to do with them. It's a combination of a lot of local knowledge and skills. I mean I'm assuming you feel pretty chuffed when you look at it, and it reminds you of all the stages of the process (unless of course you're churning them out all the time)?

Anyway what is my point, there's not much of one really. I think, that it's not the same as rocking up with a power saw? Because you don't know how to make a power saw (I'm assuming) so using it isn't quite the same as fashioning a bit of flint to make your arrow shaft all straight and smooth? Anyone can wield a power saw and cut through something, it's the tool doing it more than the person. But isn't there an extra level of satisfaction and skill from making the tools you need to do a job?

Also (and this is even vaguer) I was thinking about the different powers of observation one might have in the neolithic perhaps. In that you're living more closely in your environment, when you depend directly on it for food. Going to sainsbury's and being able to recognise a tin of tomatoes isn't quite the same. And we're so bombarded with images and information, maybe we kind of retreat from the world a bit these days. If you live amongst what you depend on to live, maybe you observe it better? I mean I've been through the whole art education thing and I know you can train yourself to observe the world in a different way, that it makes you notice things that other people don't. That really a lot of the time we go round in a daze, we're not mindful of what we're looking at or hearing or whatever, because our minds are somewhere else completely. Maybe with fewer distractions and a need to get some dinner, we'd have been more 'present' in the neolithic? And being more 'present' one wouldn't wander past a thumping great ammonite right in one's face on the front of the tomb of your ancestors.

I dunno. I should now get the Unwarranted Speculation award handed over from the heritage trust / Neil Oliver's programme.