Francis Pryor
Francis Manning Marlborough Pryor MBE (born 13 January 1945) is a British archaeologist who is famous for his role in the discovery of Flag Fen, a Bronze Age archeological site near Peterborough, and for his frequent appearances on the Channel 4 television series Time Team.
He has now retired from full-time field archaeology, but still appears on television and writes books as well as being a working farmer. His specialities are in the Bronze and Iron Ages.[1]
[edit] Biography
In his book Seahenge, Pryor gives some autobiographical information about his career.[1] He was educated at Eton College and studied archaeology at Trinity College, Cambridge. He then migrated to Toronto, Canada, with his first wife, Sylvia, on a landed immigrant scheme. There he started working at the Royal Ontario Museum as technician, working for Doug Tushingham who helped fund Pryor's first project in the United Kingdom. This was at North Elmham and the excavation was directed by Peter Wade-Martins who exposed Pryor to the benefit of opening large area excavations.
Pryor returned to the UK in 1970, where the construction of the new town at Peterborough offered the opportunity to do large scale archaeology ahead of the planned development work. Between 1970 and 1978, he alternated between digs in the UK and writing up the excavation reports and giving presentations on his work in Canada. During the course of these projects, he met his second wife, Maisie Taylor, an expert in prehistoric wood; they worked together on the series of projects in the Peterborough area, the most famous of which is Flag Fen. He has a daughter, Amy, from his first marriage. He was a founding member of the Institute of Field Archaeologists in 1982.
[edit] Works
- Francis Pryor. Seahenge: A Quest for Life and Death in Bronze Age Britain. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-710192-9. An archaeology autobiography
- Francis Pryor. Flag Fen. Life and death of a Prehistoric Landscape. Tempus Publishing Ltd, Stroud, UK, 2005, ISBN 0-7524-2900-0.
- Francis Pryor. Britain BC: life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-712693-X.
- Francis Pryor. Britain AD: a quest for Arthur, England and the Anglo-Saxons. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-718187-6.
- Francis Pryor. Farmers in Prehistoric Britain. Tempus. ISBN 0-7524-1477-1.
- Francis Pryor. Britain in the Middle Ages: An Archaeological History. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-720362-4.
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Meet the Team". channel4.com. http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam/biog_francis.html. Retrieved 2010-07-27.
