The press release for this remarkable book announces that it 'defies categorisation'. It is not wrong. Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize, Time's Anvil contemplates what is now England over a span of 750,000 years.
Sometimes we are left with snapshots, including the varying view from Paviland Cave over the last 29,000 years; elsewhere the text lingers, as with the felling of the Old Wood. Along the way we meet eminent practitioners of many disciplines, as archaeology itself emerges and the stories it tells evolve. 'Archaeology', we are told, 'might be seen as but a late ripple in the cult of ancestors'. An acquired taste, perhaps, but presenting archaeology in this way has created an especially thought-provoking read
Matthew Symonds ARCHAEOLOGY.CO.UK 20150107
Sometimes we are left with snapshots, including the varying view from Paviland Cave over the last 29,000 years; elsewhere the text lingers, as with the felling of the Old Wood. Along the way we meet eminent practitioners of many disciplines, as archaeology itself emerges and the stories it tells evolve. 'Archaeology', we are told, 'might be seen as but a late ripple in the cult of ancestors'. An acquired taste, perhaps, but presenting archaeology in this way has created an especially thought-provoking read
Matthew Symonds ARCHAEOLOGY.CO.UK 20150107