I suppose wicked Jane you are referring to 'munros', or to put it in context the achievement by 'man' to get as many mountains climbed under his belt as possible, thereby not only building new cairns from the old bronze age cairns but destroying them in the process!!
Total agreement with you, why do mountains have to be conquered, there is one sacred mountain in the Himayalans its even forbidden to set foot on....
Destruction of bronze age cairns is'nt on ......

Mind you I might be wrong ;)

Summit cairns have a particular fascination for me since they were the first prehistoric 'things' I’d ever come across after passing my driving test and going walkabout in Wales many moons ago. As you do as a young man when looking for something a bit different. Or not.

Unfortunately – for their own good - they are a much maligned and misunderstood class of prehistoric monument, many having had much of their content appropriated by farmers into drystone walls (with the coming of sheep to the hills) and, more recently, being subjected to ongoing abuse – even destruction – by your average, ill informed walker who should really know better. The practice of erecting so called ‘walkers cairns’ has also become endemic upon our mountains, adding to the general confusion, the two types becoming indistinguishable to the layman.

However these ‘walkers cairns’ are usually easily determined by their siting, being mostly found marking paths, or points where routes descend from a ridge or summit and are designed to help your mountain punter stay on the right path in mist. True Bronze Age cairns are nearly always placed occupying the highest spot, presumably to emphasize the importance of the individual(s) interred and define their territory in relation to those down below and those interred on neighbouring peaks. It would appear there was a power thing going down, something that is generally accepted to be a fundamental new aspect of society emerging during the Bronze Age. Less communal, more individual focus. Think very much 1980's.

In my experience – and I’ve seen a few now, as my poor knees will testify - very few major mountain summit cairns could plausibly be described as ‘modern’ in origin..certainly the examples I’ve visited throughout Wales, at least. Sure, they may have had a flimsy cairn built on top by enthusiastic walkers, but this should not detract from what often (but not always) lies beneath – that is the tell-tale spread of cairn material indicating a Bronze Age burial site. Aside from the fact that many have been surveyed and certified as ‘authentic’ by archaeologists [see the excellent Coflein resource at http://jura.rcahms.gov.uk/COFLEIN/Map], the sheer volume of stone littering the site will often indicate that – even if not at lot is now standing - something pretty substantial once stood where the poxy little wind-break now lies, something that should not be allowed to fall into obscurity. It is an unescapable fact, judging by the available evidence, that our mountain summits were once seriously sacred places, and to some still are. The fact that the people who built the poxy little windbreak have contributed to destroying what should by all rights probably be a scheduled ancient monument clearly didn't occur and should be treated as vandalism in my eyes. And why should it have occurred? Isn’t it just a pile of stones, like a long barrow’s ‘just a pile of earth’? I’m sure the person(s) once buried here would not have agreed.

Luckily many summit cairns have been surveyed/excavated by the experts, with features such as internal cists discovered [e.g upon the summit of Corn Du in the Brecon Beacons] and artefacts such arrowheads recovered [e.g upon Pumlumon]. A number of Welsh summits were actually named after their burial cairns [e.g Carnedd Dafydd, Carnedd Llewleyn, Garnedd Fach] demonstrating a long folk memory. This I believe is something we should cherish and try to ensure that something tangible remains behind the legends for future generations to discover. But the cavalier attitude to their preservation means that they are fast disappearing. Much has been done to arrest the destruction of other great prehistoric monuments in recent times. But what about the vast Bronze Age burial cemetery which is the British Uplands?

Watch out, there’s a windbreak going up on a mountain near you right now. No planning permission required……