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It's like that wretched Oxford English Dictionary - did you see those programmes about people trying to add the earliest found instances of particular words and phrases. A case in point being 'nit nurse' - they had elderly people swearing that they knew the name when they were checked out by one at school - but this was NO GOOD as it was merely anecdotal evidence, and It Must Be Written Down. I can see the point of this, but sometimes it was just ridiculous, it was flying in the face of perfectly good evidence.

You're absolutely right, of course...

And I can't imagine any prominent archaeologist sticking their neck out by wanting to be the first to say something is of archaeological interest for fear of ridicule.

The catch being that I can't exaclty say that I've found a standing stone cos I'd probably be asked what my qualification for such a proclamation would be.

So it's pretty likely that a lot of these things that look like standing stones and circles actually ARE! Blimey...

G x

Ha! I remember that programme - on BBC2 a few months back - I seem to remember they found one or two written entries with references to a 'nit nurse', but again, because the stories were anecdotal, they were discounted. I'm only 33 and I remember nit nurses in primary school!