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The suggestion of it being 17th century is just that a suggestion.
I think it was Ronald Hutton who came up with the idea.
If i remember rightly,because he had not found any written evidence before the 17th century on the Cerne Abbas Giant it could'nt have been made before then.
I have read his books and they are interesting. He does a lot of research, looking through church records etc. But I doubt that what he writes can ever be 100% correct. Records and documents over the years have no doubt gone missing, been destroyed, mislayed.
And if we take his idea that if it's not mentioned in writing before a certain date it can't be old, that means that many of our ancient monuments can't be ancient as some of them especially in remote areas, were not written about untill recent centuries.
As for the Long Man of Wilmington, the dating evidence came from the base of the hill not the figue itself.
Story here:
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?thold=-1&mode=flat&order=0&sid=1376
http://www.reading.ac.uk/bulletin/pdfs/407.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Man_of_Wilmington
It seems that from one dig at a site in Sussex they automatically presume that the Cerne Abbas giant must be the same date.
This is maybe where Ronald Hutton may have got his idea from.
To be honest more research should be done on these two hill figues.
The controversy will not go away untill more archaeology is done, not just one dig.
The Uffington White Horse after all turned out to be a lot older than many people thought. It is dated to the late Bronze/early Ironage.
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road