Francis Pryor

An authoritative and radical rethinking of the history of Ancient Britain and Ancient Ireland, based on remarkable new archaeological finds.

British history is traditionally regarded as having started with the Roman Conquest. But this is to ignore half a million years of prehistory that still exert a profound influence. Here Francis Pryor examines the great ceremonial landscapes of Ancient Britain and Ireland - Stonehenge, Seahenge, Avebury and the Bend of the Boyne - as well as the discarded artefacts of day-to-day life, to create an astonishing portrait of our ancestors.

This major re-revaluation of pre-Roman Britain, made possible in part by aerial photography and coastal erosion, reveals a much more sophisticated life in Ancient Britain and Ireland than has previously been supposed.

The Fens is Britain's most distinctive, complex, man-made and least understood landscape. Francis Pryor has lived in the Fen Country for more than 40 years and loves its levels and drains, its soaring churches and magnificent medieval buildings. Here he counterpoints the history of the Fenland landscape and its transformation, with the story of his own discovery of it as an archaeologist.