Excellent article, Suibhne. I've only had time to give it a quick scan at the moment but I take your point - especially as many heads are prominently displayed.

Just taking the setting of my perennial wanderings and fumblings (I hesitate to call it research) - the area around Rudston on the Yorkshire Wolds (reputedly one of the oldest inhabited villages in England). Although there are foliate heads in/on the 12thC church that stands next to the great Neolithic monolith, nothing resembling it has (to my limited knowledge, at least) ever been unearthed in the surrounding 'sacred' landscape which spans the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Celtic and Roman periods. I do, however, expect that they could be a continuation of the death/rebirth scenario that is a common theme of beliefs in all these periods and which may be why (pre Synod of Whitby) Christianity was accepted so readily. I've just finished reading Mike Williams' Prehistoric Belief, which is enlightening on this subject.