Buy pre-owned £11.74

£2.80 delivery Sep 27 - 29. Details

Select delivery location

Pre-owned: Very Good | Details

Sold by World of Books Ltd

Share <Embed>

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Authors

Francis Pryor

Britain BC: Life In Britain and Ireland before the Romans Hardcover – 1 Sept. 2003

by Francis Pryor (Author)

319 ratings

Part of: Britain Book (4 books)

See all formats and editions

Amazon Price

New from

Used from

Kindle Edition

"Please retry"

£8.49

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

£11.74

£202.42

£10.46

Paperback

"Please retry"

£10.70

£8.20

£2.31

An authoritative and radical rethinking of the whole of British history before the coming of the Romans, based on remarkable new archaeological finds.

So many extraordinary archaeological discoveries (many of them involving the author) have been made in the last thirty years that our whole understanding of British prehistory needs to be updated. So far only the specialists have twigged on to these developments; now, for the first time, Francis Pryor broadcasts them to a much wider, general audience.

Aided by aerial photography, coastal erosion (which has helped expose such coastal sites as Seahenge) and new planning legislation which requires developers to excavate the land they build on, archaeologists have unearthed a far more sophisticated life among the Ancient Britons than has been previously supposed. Far from being the woaded barbarians of Roman propaganda, we Brits had our own religion, laws, crafts, arts, trade, farms, priesthood and royalty. And the Scots, English and Welsh were fundamentally one and the same people.

Print length

512 pages
Language

English
Publisher

HarperCollins
Publication date

1 Sept. 2003
ISBN-10

0007126921
ISBN-13

978-0007126927
See all details

School Books

From pre-school to A-levels, find School Books for all ages Shop now

Francis Pryor
171
Paperback
37 offers from £0.95
Francis Pryor
249
Paperback
13 offers from £6.00
Neil Oliver
710
Paperback
43 offers from £1.45
Francis Pryor
151
Paperback
19 offers from £5.88
Alice Roberts
699
Paperback
49 offers from £2.30
Alice Roberts
1,170
Hardcover
35 offers from £3.57

Special offers and product promotions

Save 5% on 1 of every 2 Qualifying items you purchase offered by World of Books Ltd. Here's how (terms and conditions apply)

Product description

Review

‘Francis Pryor has given us a remarkable, imaginative and persuasive account of those other Britons… its enthusiastic and confident approach deserves to be very influential’ TLS

‘A compulsive narrative intertwining prehistory, the excitement of discovery and personalities. It bounds along, wonderfully enlivened by Pryor’s earthy enthusiasm’ New Scientist

‘There are enough curious facts, contentious theories and bizarre hypotheses here to hold the interest of anyone concerned with the unique and peculiar story of these islands’ Independent on Sunday

From the reviews of Francis Pryor’s television series on BRITAIN BC:

'Fascinating…the evangelical Pryor paints a vivid portrait of pre-Roman society that tackles received wisdom about what was going on here in the stone, bronze and iron ages' Daily Telegraph
'Fascinating' Guardian
'Pryor leaps about the country at a cracking pace, his big personality making sure we never get bored by the scant and rarefied scraps that are his stock-in-trade' Observer
'Fascinating' Independent
'Visually stunning. Pryor offers an inspiring new view of Britain before the Roman invasion' Yorkshire Post

From the Inside Flap

Traditionally, British history has been regarded as starting with the Roman Conquest. Yet this is to ignore half a million years of prehistory that still exert a profound influence on British and Irish life today. In Britain BC, Francis Pryor sets the record straight.
Aided in recent years by aerial photography and costal erosion (which has helped expose such sites as Seahenge), and by advances in scientific techniques such as radiocarbon dating and wood analysis, archaeologists have discovered compelling evidence for a much more sophisticated life among the Ancient Britons than has been previously supposed. Far from being woad-painted barbarians, the earliest inhabitants of the British Isles had developed their own religions, laws, crafts, arts, trade systems, farms and priesthood long before the Romans' brief occupation.
Examining sites from the great ceremonial landscapes of Stonehenge, Avebury and the Bend of the Boyne to small domestic settlements, and objects from precious ritual offerings to the tiny fragments of flint discarded by toolmakers, Francis Pryor, one of our leading archaeologists, has created a remarkable portrait of the life of our ancestors, in all its variety and complexity. His authoritative and radical re-examination of Britain and Ireland before the coming of the Romans makes us look afresh at the whole story of our islands.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins; First Edition (1 Sept. 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 512 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0007126921
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0007126927

Best Sellers Rank: 192,099 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 38 in Prehistory
- 106 in Prehistoric Archaeology
- 283 in Archaeology by Region

Customer reviews:
319 ratings

Alice Roberts
189
Hardcover
24 offers from £8.92
Alice Roberts
1,170
Hardcover
35 offers from £3.57
Michael Wood
45
Hardcover
23 offers from £14.55
Francis Pryor
88
Paperback
15 offers from £1.25
Francis Pryor
151
Hardcover
24 offers from £10.22
Marc Morris
1,749
Hardcover
18 offers from £16.07

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Francis Pryor
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
See more on the author's page
Francis Pryor
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

5 star		71%
4 star		18%
3 star		5%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from United Kingdom

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Lucy

Nice book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 July 2022

Nice present

Fascinating and revealing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 September 2013

Verified Purchase

I am neither a pre-historian nor archaeologist and I knew nothing about British pre-history before reading this book. Pryor writes engagingly, intelligently and broadly, and I found this a hugely fascinating and insightful book. The book is structured as a chronological survey of pre-Roman Britain, working chapter by chapter through the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. Within each chapter is an extremely interesting overview of the archaeological evidence, giving you a sense of how archaeology is conducted, how it has changed over time, and what debates are current in British pre-history. In presenting his historical analysis, Pryor also covers a wide range of topics, including social and family structures, communications within the British Isles and with other places, domestic life, agriculture, technology, economics, population growth, culture and religion. Running through it all is Pryor's clearly expressed and persuasively argued view that our pre-history is important and we should take more care to preserve and understand it. His afterword - arguing that we should stop regarding British history as starting with the Romans, and pay more attention to the achievements of pre-historic Britons - is especially powerful, particularly when you have read everything that comes before it.

If I had to offer any criticism at all it would be that Pryor seems to me a little too hasty to ascribe ritual, and spirituality in general, as the motive behind the construction of pre-historic sites, and too quick to dismiss more mundane explanations. This may well be justified by the evidence in ways too complex to explain in a book of this nature, but when I read him say things like 'ritual seems to be the only logical explanation remaining' or 'knowing as we do the central importance of ritual in their lives' (these are not quotes but me paraphrasing) I found myself less than fully persuaded. But this is a very minor quibble that does not detract from the overall impression of the book.

A note on the Kindle edition: as Amazon makes clear, the illustrations are not included. There were times when this was problematic. It was often difficult to visualise mentally an elaborate pre-historic site from Pryor's (detailed) verbal description alone and access to the illustrations would have been helpful. Only late in the book are there a couple of times when the text actually says 'as you can see from the picture...' and clearly this was frustrating. Ideally the publisher should put out a revised edition with the illustrations. Since I doubt they will, you should consider buying this in hard copy.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 February 2012

Verified Purchase

Britain BC is an excellent introduction to British Archeology but there are very few actual facts about life before the Romans. This is a very new way of looking at history to me as most books on later time periods are based on written first hand accounts. Without any written records though it seems that pre Roman history is all about conjecture and hypothesis.

I have to admit I am not a big fan of Time Team, I find it very hard to get excited about someone digging up a broken bit of pottery no matter how old it is. This however seems to be the basis of Britain BC and Francis Pryor spends a lot of time discussing what we may or may not conclude about Bronze Age Britain from a broken bit of jug, or a rusty spearhead or the foundations of a mud hut.

The book is written in a very light informal style which is quite easy to read but the amount of factual information being relayed would barely fill one chapter. Instead the book is almost semi autobiographical with numerous anecdotes by Francis Pryor explaining how he got into archeology, what aspects he finds interesting, and the people he has met along the way. This pads out the book to an unnecessary degree and some of the asides can get a bit tiresome.

To be fair to Francis Pryor though he does give credit where credit is due and names a lot of unsung heroes in archeology who might otherwise go unheard. This also gives a good starting point for anyone who wants to know more about a particular site or find.

One aspect I particularly liked about this book was the use of numerous diagrams and illustrations throughout. These help to show you exactly what the text is talking about without dumbing down the content. They are extremely informative, not just decorative.

Unfortuately though I struggled with the main points of the book, and possibly with the whole concept of archeology. It seems a poor science which must base its conclusions on the slimmest of evidence. Take for example the idea of a stone age round house and the fact that the doors all faced East. According to the author this has numerous inferences about the cycle of life and death and the involvement of religious ritual in family life. Alternatively though could it not also be that the stone age family might just like the sun to wake them up in the morning, or a hundred other possibilities ? One theory seems as good as another and I feel that Francis Pryor and the other experts he quotes are reading too much into the smallest pieces of evidence.

On the whole then this is not a bad book and fans of Time Team will probably enjoy it immensely. I found it irritating due to the lack of evidential support to the ideas given but I don't expect I will find a more informative book on the subject elsewhere.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	AbeBooks Books, art & collectables	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Audible Download Audiobooks	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	DPReview Digital Photography	Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations

Amazon Home Services Experienced pros Happiness Guarantee	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital & Print Publishing Made Easy	Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands

Amazon Warehouse Deep Discounts Open-Box Products	Amazon Business Service for business customers	Whole Foods Market We Believe in Real Food

Select Your Cookie Preferences

Follow the Authors

Britain BC: Life In Britain and Ireland before the Romans Hardcover – 1 Sept. 2003

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Special offers and product promotions

Product description

Review

From the Inside Flap

About the Author

Product details

Customers who bought this item also bought

About the authors

Francis Pryor

Francis Pryor

Customer reviews

Top reviews from United Kingdom

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.