Francis Pryor

Francis Manning Marlborough Pryor MBE FSA (born 13 January 1945) is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of the Bronze and Iron Ages in Britain.

He is best known for his discovery and excavation of Flag Fen, a Bronze Age archaeological site near Peterborough, as well as for his frequent appearances on the Channel 4 television series Time Team.

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.

Pryor followed this with a third book on the site, published by Tempus in 2005; entitled Flag Fen: Life and Death of a Prehistoric Landscape, it represented what he considered to be a "major revision" of his 1991 work, for instance rejecting the earlier "lake village" concept.

[7] One of Pryor's four times great grandfathers is Samuel Hoare, the Quaker and founding member of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

Pryor (right) discusses the excavation during the filming of a 2007 dig for Time Team with series editor Michael Douglas (left).