The date of the Cerne Giant has long been a matter for debate, as exemplified and exacerbated by a public and televised debate of March 1996, published as The Cerne Giant; an antiquity on trial (1999, Oxbow). Excavations were conducted in 2020 by the National Trust in the centenary year of the National Trust's ownership of the Giant. The aim was the date the Giant, and to present the information to the villagers on the centenary (July/August 2020) at the village Hall. The results would then be published as appropriate. Covid interrupted the dating and post-excavation program and and the planned announcement of the date. The publication program is now well advanced and the aim is to publish not just the excavation, which could be achieved in a journal paper, but to enable a much wider discussion by appropriate period specialists and broader archaeological and historical comment in a follow-on publication to the 1999 volume.

While the excavations were limited in extent and scope, the aim was to date the construction of the iconic figure once and for all by absolute dating methods (OSL). As the 1999 publication explained, the jury was still out - with advocates for a prehistoric origin, one connected to the period of the Civil War or a more modern one. In the event, the dates were a complete surprise, falling within the Anglo-Saxon period though there is a Saxon Abbey within the village of Cerne Abbas. Perhaps unsurprisingly, some archaeologists and historians are unhappy with the new dating and so the controversy continues. While there is a group of comparatively recent hill figures, such as the army badges carved into the hillside at Fovant, Wiltshire, these new findings confirm that there is no earlier chalk figure 'horizon' in the British landscape.
The volume is is divided into three parts. Part 1 deals with new research: the historical background and aims, the excavation results, stratigraphy finds (virtually none) geoarchaeological interpretation, land-use history (environmental/land snails), and discussion which includes the excavator (Papworth), scientific lead (Allen) and two leading early medieval academics, and will place the Cerne Giant into a much wider context. Part Two is the discussion and implications derived from the excavation, the dates, the palaeo-environmental evidence and places the Giant his local and Saxon context. Part three is a much wider discussion section. It begins with summaries of the other two excavated hill figures (Long Man of Wilmington, and Uffington White Horse) by their excavators to provide a context and contrast. This is followed by a series of essays which purposely echoes the style and format presented in the 1999 publication. The invited essayists include leading archaeologists, historians and experts in early medieval iconography.

Our research has provided an accurate, scientifically verified date for the Cerne Giant and nullified many of the debates, but the surprise of the results has engendered many more. These results, together with the land-use history and ominous 'disappearance' of the Giant for six centuries, provide the platform for reconsideration and new discussion and debate.