Customer Reviews

Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Pryor is candid about his intentions. He wants to understand the society of his homeland. To gain that understanding, he's dug more holes than "found in Blackbourne, Lancashire". He's also swept the literature of prehistoric Britain to learn what his colleagues have revealed in their work. The result is a compelling narrative of how Britain, in the years before the Roman invasion, lived, worshipped and died. He's gone a step further in trying out the life for himself. It all boils down to what might be an exercise in chauvinism, but Pryor's too professional to sink into that morass. Instead, he's given us a superb overview of the roots of the British Isles. He also provides an superlative insight into the workings of modern archaeology.

The title reflects Pryor's view that too much attention has been paid to the Roman era. Christianity's invasion on Roman skirt-tails, of course, has diverted attention from the beliefs of pre-Roman peoples. He wants to set that record straight, and does so thoroughly and admirably. Drawing on a wealth of resources, he casts away the "invasion" foundation of British pre-history to build a new structure. Sweeping hordes give way to a society that spread cultural innovations through limited, but far-reaching mobility. Instead of defensive fortresses, the British Isles are pocked with "henges", religious centres reflecting a stable, ancestor-worshipping society. Henges, he reminds us, totally lack defensive features. Weapons are found as often in bogs and streams, or buried with owners. They aren't the detritus of battle.

Pryor's start is the now-famous site of Boxgrove. His account of the finds there, a stone tool preparation site nearly half a million years old, is nearly as vivid as Mike Pitts' own. The site reflects the changing nature of archaeology - more attention is now devoted to assessing what the environment was like in that distant time. Weather, soil, forest or field, are among the many elements now assessed in building a picture of ancient humanity's life. Instead of racks of museum collections, tools, weapons and jewellry now form images of what our ancestors considered important. If Pryor delves into speculation in his depictions, it's clearly an informed conjecture. Details, hidden in time, may remain hidden, but much more is now available to consider than earlier researchers had at their disposal.

Pryor demonstrates how modern research has discerned Neolithic paddocks and trackways. Faint lines in crops or discontinuities in the soil exposed by aerial photography have led to amazing finds. His descriptions of discoveries, digs exposing ancient structures and artefacts reveal a wealth of new information while imparting Pryor's own love of the science. That affection carries over into his accounts of how his ancestors lived. To him, this information is intensely valuable. If nothing else, it shatters long-held, but false myths about what comprises the British peoples. People today will understand themselves better if they understand their ancestors better. If that reduces aggression, bigotry and dogma, that's all to the good. In Pryor's hands, archaeology becomes more than an arcane science removed from society. Instead, the research becomes a force for positive thinking and, hopefully, action.

With such an outlook, this author has produced an immensely readable book. His fondness for the work and the discoveries is apparent. He exhorts you to share it all with him. He draws the reader into the questions his research seeks to answer. His enthusiasm is contagious - you want to be there at the various digs and museums with him. If you can't arrange that, he provides a multitude of drawings, maps and photograph sets to help convey what he's seen. There are the dead, their possessions, sometimes their dress. Different conditions, he explains, preserve different things. Where they haven't been preserved, he reconstructs them. The wattle and thatch house at Fengate is built to verify how it was done. With all these elements assembled in one book, it becomes clear that Pryor has created a lasting volume. British focus aside, this book should be a feature on any shelf. It's about you. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Pryor has combined his own expertise from the archaeological field with a thorough understnading of the work of fellow archaeologists, (both in the UK and abroad), to present a vibrant, fluid and exceptionally informative look at life before Roman Britain.

Where Pryor makes some "judgement calls", he is open and honest about how much evidence there is and some different ways of understanding it. He presents a variety of views.

What you end up with a very comprehensive view of prehistoric life in Britain that does not get lost in reams of dry information. Pryor writes with an obvious passion for the topic, and that enthusiasm comes out in the writing.

It is basically a great book, with loads of information. I learned heaps from it!

As a former participant in the Fengate excavations that Francis Pryor supervised near Peterborough in the 1970s, I found his interpretation of Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age ritual in the daily life of prehistoric Britian to be compelling, interspersed as it was with personal anecdotes and current case studies. This book only whetted my appetite to return and experience anew those discoveries and many more, enlightened by a new understanding of my own roots, both professional and personal.

Dr. Boyd Dixon
Senior Archaeologist
PBS&J
Austin Texas

Francis Pryor's Britain BC is one of the most readable and certainly one of the most enjoyable archaeology books I have ever read. Pryor brings Britain's prehistory to life, no small task given that he is dealing with nonliterate peoples, vast amounts of time and, given the nature of the field, data that tends to be scattered at many sites. He has been criticized for both his "at-ease" writing style and at the same time for being too technical in parts. I find that he walks the line between archaeological scholar and archaeological popularizer extemely well. He is a fluid writer who must at times dig more deeply into the data to make a point. One needs to be aware of his goal in this book. In the several archaeology courses I had in my college days, I became aware of what a solid archaeology text is like. It is the combination of the latest data and methodology organized in a way so that a student can bring the work to bear in future courses or careers. Such books are often "dry" but that is not a criticism if the goal is to lay a firm groundwork for future field work or coursework in archaeology. But Pryor's goal is not that. It is, as he puts it in the Preface, to get across to the reader his fascination with the "story" of early humans in Britain. His readership is not primarily intended to be future archaeologists, though they would also learn a great deal here. His goal is to get the general educated reader to experience the excitement and, frankly, the fun of the dig, the joy of discovery and the amazement at our ancestors' accomplishments. Understandably, Pryor views the Romans as destructive of an indigenous people, though he points out that the early prehistory of Britain continued to live on. As a result, I found the very last part of the book on the late Iron Age written with somewhat less "elan" than the earlier periods - even with perhaps a touch of the tragic. But that is what happens when a people that one has come to love is invaded by the likes of the Roman Legions.

Britain BC is as fine a work on British prehistory for the general public as there is on the market. As Pryor hopes, it brings the ancient Britons out of the twilight zone of history. I highly recommend it.

Generally, this gives excellent, general coverage of a huge subject. The occasional personal bits and other mannerisms - inserted to popularise - can be tiresome, and there are indigestible wadges that are too specialised, for example on the field systems, and these might have have been reduced. Yet overall this is an excellent survey for the general reader.

As the other 3 reviewers have provided brilliant reviews about the topics, the author and information provided, all I will add, like my fellow reviewer above is:
Pryor's: Britain BC is very comprehensive for the home history buff (with no prior archeology knowledge required .... phew !!) and incredibly interesting, and at times completely mind blowing.

I feel intellectually richer having read this book. And in all honesty, for the small price it costs here on Amazon ..... if you 'dig' (pardon the pun) this type of stuff - BUY IT !!

I agree with the other reviewers that this book reads like an archaeologist talking to you at the pub. Unfortunately, for me, it was a drunk, confused archaeologist who rambled all over the map without painting any compelling picture. It was a shotgun approach that tried failed badly in my opinion.

I bought this book because I was hoping to get an account of what life was like in Britain BC. What I got was long, boring stories about the minute details of archaeological digs, political aspects of archaeology, and grand suppositions that were so broad as to be almost useless. The author claims that the story of Britain BC is about families, yet there is NO information on the day-to-day life of families. How big where they? Were they multigenerational? What were the roles of various family members? None of this information is presented in the book, which wanders aimlessly between scales of analyses, topics, and themes.

Instead, you get scattered details about a huge range of different archaeological sites. The names alone are hard to keep track of, let alone how the nature of an oak plank bridge is of tremendous important to the overall picture of Britain BC (in my opinion, it isn't).

This book gets two stars because the author at least tries to maintain the image of sticking to the data, even though as soon as he says that, he then engages in broad speculation himself. Save your money, I'll give you the only two significant findings of this book:

1- Stone-age bled into bronze-age which bled into iron-age. In other words, there was a degree of continuity and shared culture. Why this is surprising, I don't know. Maybe it was when the author started doing research 40+ years ago, but it isn't now.

2- Sometimes artifacts and structures have a religious, spiritual meaning that is not functional. Again, maybe this was revolutionary when the author started doing research, or maybe archaeology is just really, really lame. I don't know, I'm an evolutionary psychologist (with some experience in anthropology). These revolutionary conclusions seemed entirely too pedestrian to me.

So, if you are interested in the minute details of archaeology (including some very boring bureaucratic details), and grand, but unlinked, incoherent, and non-family details about Britain BC, this book is for you. Otherwise, stay away.

I have little to add to the five good reviews posted so far, but a few notes may be worthwhile. I'm an anthropologist, not an archaeologist but a confirmed archaeology junkie, and I took this book along on a trip to Scotland. It was a great book to have. It was particularly valuable for the Orkneys, whose Golden Age seems to have been around 3000-4000 BC (an odd time and place for a Golden Age, but the stuff is literally monumental).
Pryor seems to write his popular books by turning on the tape recorder while telling tales in the local pub. He has a great British yarn-spinning style, and (more in the wonderful Medieval volume than in this one) he tells you all the good pubs to visit after you see the sites (pun irresistible). You learn about his wife (an archaeologist specializing in ancient wood), his sheep farm (re-creating old methods), his sheepdog, and much else, all charming.
Be warned of some biases. He interprets the record as one of evolution in place with a few outside influences trickling in, rather than a series of invasions. I generally agree with him (I know the literature pretty well), but some do not, so read e.g. recent works by Colin Renfrew and decide for yourselves.
One really interesting item surfaces on pp. 149-151: amazingly beautiful and carefully made "axe-heads" in lovely stone. I thought he might be exaggerating--he loves even a few squiggly lines on a Neolithic object--but a visit to the Museum of Scotland convinced me that he is, if anything, understating. These axeheads have never been used. They are in mint condition, not even showing handling wear. They are among the most stunningly beautiful pieces of stonework I have ever seen--perfect in form, exquisitely polished, and clearly intended to be consummately beautiful. Some were made of jadeite (hard as quartz) and traded all the way from the Alps. They are as fine as any Chinese or Maya jadeite pieces. They were found in burials and other presumably ritual contexts, and clearly hold a lot of secrets. They show that even the European Neolithic, notable otherwise for some pretty sorry pottery, had high aesthetic standards.
One place we visited in the Orkneys was Maes Howe, a huge domed communal tomb made of giant slabs of rock around 3000-3500 BC. In the Medieval period, some Vikings got caught in a storm and took refuge in it. Two of them went insane during the night. Watch out for those Neolithic spirits.
Pryor is writing partly to get more support and conservation for archaeological sites. I thoroughly support this, and wish him every success. One reason why we need them is that they show how similar people are in all times and places. I love archaeology because it is so unsurprising: it shows us that people lived, ate, wore clothes, loved, had children, butchered pigs, died and were buried, pretty much as they have at all times and places. Those flashy differences in art and politics seem unimportant beside the loving and caring burials, the worn clothing, the carefully worked wood, and the fire-blackened cooking pots emerging from peat bogs and clay pits. The bones of our ancestors reminds us that what matters is that we are all siblings beneath the skin.

This is a very enjoyable book that explores the ancient history of Britain from a perspective not often found in other works. As the other two reviews written here do an excellent job of detailing what you'll find in this enjoyable volume, I'll save you the time of reading my review and simply say "I concur".

2010 09 15

I just finished reading this book for the 2nd time, and I enjoyed it very much. A long time fan of information about the British past, I've always been a bit annoyed with how little we know about that portion of Britain's past which came before the arrival of writing. When I found this book, I was really excited, as quite a few of the other volumes I'd come across which dealt with the pre-Roman British past were very dryly written and uninteresting for me. I found this book very easy to read, both in terms of content and style, and it provided at least one man's well supported point of view on some of the major themes of the human occupation of Britain for the half million years or so leading up to the arrival of the Romans. As one reviewer pointed out, this is not an anthropology book, focused on the details of the daily lives of pre-Roman Britains. But, as it's written by an archaeologist, I didn't find that inappropriate or surprising. I've long had an interest in archaeology, so I found some of the detailed discussions of how that science approaches studying Britain's past very enlightening.

Pryor's perspective on ancient British life seems focused on the continuity of "Britishness" as compared to the view he grew up with in school, where Britains were portrayed as the offspring of wave after wave of foreign invaders, with little chance of anything truly ancient surviving to today from the long distant past of the islands. What he believes he and others have discovered is a very different view, which suggests that Britains of today, while clearly influenced by many forces from the continent, are fare more deeply connected, both genetically and culturally, to their ancient ancestors than the previous generation of scientists had believed.

Is he right? I don't know. But I felt that Pryor made his case well, and enjoyably, and provided a look into Britain's past which made sense in ways some other views I've heard didn't. Will his theories prove correct? Only time, further investigation and further evidence from many fields (genetics, archaeology, anthropology, and more) will tell. But if you're looking for a book which shines some light on the dimly lit chapters of time in Britain before Rome, this book may provide what you're looking for.

And as with all books, think about what you want from the book before your purchase. Read all the reviews and get a feel for yourself if this is the sort of book that will deliver the kind of information and perspective you're looking for. There's no point in blaming the author for writing the kind of book he enjoys writing if it's not the sort of book you think you'll enjoy reading.