Francis Pryor 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 specialties are in the Bronze and Iron Ages.
Biography
In his book Seahenge, Pryor gives some autobiographical information about his career. He studied archaeology at the University of Cambridge, but left university disillusioned with the discipline and 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 UK. 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, an expert in pre-historic wood. He has a daughter, Amy, from his first marriage.
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.
