Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

Sometimes I think the human involvement in erecting stones is not important, we are creatures of creativity and invention it would follow that we would develop our world with the materials to hand. No it is the natural world that invokes the sense of awe and wonderment, the perfection of the wing of a bird, the colour of a flower or the massivity of a great mountain and perhaps their interconnectivity to everything around them as expressed by John Muir above. This always strikes me as I touch the stones at Pentre Ifan, the millions of years the stone was so long ago created, if you walk along parts of the coast of West Wales, you will see the great vertical folding of the rocks after some upheaval of the Earth - geological history writ large. Stoney Littleton has the symbolic image of an ammonite at its doorway, and beautifully shaped stones in the tomb itself. But for me Stoney Littleton represents the little Wellow river with trailing water plants floating in the current and a rich wild planting of flowers lining its banks in summer, also the stoniness of the field you walk through as you approach the long barrow, probably evidence of its' creation.

Many of our prehistoric stones, barrows, etc remain in the wild places of the moors and high mountains, the last remaining bits of 'wildness' in this small country, perhaps that is what draws people to seek prehistory out.