The Fens: Discovering England's Ancient Depths
by Francis Pryor
Head of Zeus Jul 2019
£25 pp458 hb isbn 9781786692221 Reviewed by Mike Pitts
Francis Pryor has an enthusiastic verbal energy th that will ill b be known to many, through his appearances on tv and radio, his books and his blog, Francis Pryor – In the Long Run. The Fens, which I count as his 14th trade book (including two novels), falls into a group that tell
archaeological and historical narratives of British landscape history between the Mesolithic and the present. His energy sometimes overflows into repetition, and, as with other books, there are anecdotes and excavations in this new one that he has told before. But Pryor always writes well and entertainingly, and in The Fens he has created what should become one of his most lasting works, a personal, archaeological celebration of a region where he has family roots and where he conducted a lifetime’s fieldwork – and where he raises sheep – and that he loves.
In 18 chapters he combines descriptions of excavations and surveys b by himself and colleagues with wider s stories of change in settlement and landscape. la Such is his record he is able, by and large, to do this as a personal narrative too, as he digs his way through ancient history from Neolithic Etton to Iron Age Fengate and beyond; in one striking scene Maisie Taylor, his wife, finds medieval tally sticks in King’s
Lynn, notched strips of wood recording ships’ cargoes. As we near the present the device fades a little, and with few excavations risks becoming a travel diary of churches, windmills and fish shops. But it remains interesting and convincing to the end, and is an important contribution to the literature of eastern England.
Archaeologists are not his target readership, but the stories of an experienced field practitioner will resonate with other professionals, and Pryor understands research and ideas in a way only an archaeologist could. Some may challenge his belief that “people in the distant past were no different from us”. His insistence on continuity, from Mesolithic hunters learning to farm to Bronze Age carpentry skills expressed in medieval cathedrals, is vulnerable to adna studies which are revealing unimagined population complexities. Nonetheless, I’d recommend this book to archaeologists – for both the story Pryor tells and the way he tells it.