I just saw this documentary French spoken and French subtitled about "Must Farm" one of the most interesting archeological bronze age sites in Europe because it was as Pompei abandonned in a hurry nearly with the food still on the table.
Hence the archeological worth because it gives a rare glimpse of how people really lived in that time.

What I retain of the documentary perhaps because I am most interested in these particulary fields:

the long distance trade that connected the whole of Europe and even the Middle East. I most learned about it, surprisingly in a book about the Belgian language border in a chapter starting even before the Bronze Age.

the multidisciplinary approach as the scientifical research to see in the raw materials of an object, where the object came from and even where the raw material components are coming from.

And one speaks always from the old Egypt, but here in Europe there was already, perhaps not that high level as overthere, but nevertheless already a sophisticated interconnected society present in that Europe of 14 million (including the British Isles).

And who says trade, says spread and expansion of knowledge, science, culture, which start similarities in the whole of Europe.



https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190612082628.htm
https://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/current-projects/must-farm-project

And finally I found the Arte film, which seems to be a copy from this BBC documentary

Thank you for those links Paul.

Must Farm has not received nearly as much attention in the popular media as it probably warrants. The finds make the neighbouring remnants of the causeway at Flag Fen literally negligible. In fact it's interesting to note that neither the causeway nor the seminal work done on it by Francis Pryor warrants a mention in either the ScienceDaily or the Cambridge Archaeology articles or in the BBC documentary. That said - the Must Farm website and its brilliantly-named and downloadable Must Read info sheet does mention Pryor and the causeway quite extensively. 

The reason, I suppose, is that Richard Pryor is a bit of a marmite character in archaeological circles. 'Serious' academics probably find him too flamboyant and self-promoting for their tastes. Others, however, might think that a bit of charisma and showmanship is just what a subject like archaeology needs if it's to be sold to the lay public and not appear too dry. In fact Pryor's most recent campaign was a funding drive to get as much of Flag Fen excavated and preserved before (after over 3000 years) it does indeed dry out and disintegrate over the next 50 years.

The find has received much attention, I would say. Indeed there was an associated "media blitz" at the time in which the terrible "Pompeii" analogy was much exploited to garner that attention and I can see from Paul's discovery of these links that it is persisting. At the time several archaeologists directly involved in the excavation tried hard to downplay the association - they knew they were dealing with a find that in many ways surpassed Pompeii in terms of antiquity and the ability to extract reliable data and context from meagre source material. If anything this find in particular could have been held up as a fantastic advertisement for the huge advances in forensic examination capabilities in recent years which, in itself, might have prompted more serious and willing funding for similar projects going forward. Instead the "abandoned community" aspect was played up for everything it was worth, a PR tactic that actually discourages funding for less "spectacular" projects going forward. A candidate, indeed, for my "how not to report archaeology" thread.

Your description of Pryor as a "Marmite" archaeologist does a disservice to Marmite, which is at least liked by 50% of those who encounter it. My own quibble with the guy is not with his "charisma and showmanship", both of which qualities in which he probably invests more belief than does his audience, but in his interpretative bias leading to some very incorrect conclusions which his self-publicity also therefore tended to advertise. He is not alone in this trait, a trap many archaeologists can easily fall into, but his conscious decision to prioritise (Pryoritise?) self promotion over good cautious forensic discipline as, say, Mick Aston had demonstrated through the same platform (Pryor's use on "Time Team" increased as Aston grew more ill and unable to front the programme), probably also worked against public perception of archaeology, at least among discerning viewers already informed enough to distinguish between biased guesswork and forensic conclusion (in no small part thanks to Aston's own involvement). For someone who claims always to be doing the opposite it was a blunder on his part, as it was on that of those who assisted in his promotion.

I imagine he is not an "archaeologist's archaeologist". A bit like Mortimer Wheeler, of whom one fellow archaeologist once remarked regarding his literary output - "Mortimer is a great man to write one's foreward when one publishes material for the general public to read. Thankfully he never asks us to reciprocate with his own books."

PS: You might want to correct your error regarding which Pryor we're talking about. Richard had many faults, some way more serious than Francis. But at least he was intentionally comical.

nordmann wrote:

his conscious decision to prioritise (Pryoritise?) self promotion over good cautious forensic discipline

Very good nordmann. I like that and the quote regarding Mortimer Wheeler and reciprocating writing a forward. Brilliant!

I don't know why I wrote 'Richard' in the second paragraph. Truly Freudian - or then again: