Ancient Wonderings: Journeys into Prehistoric Britain
- Submitting institution
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The University of Essex
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- 2779
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
-
-
- Publisher
- Harper Collins
- ISBN
- 9780008175207
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- June
- Year of publication
- 2017
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
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-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- The process of investigation was focused on exploring research questions centred on creatively imagining the reality of life in prehistoric Britain – both by going to various sites throughout the archipelago and spending time in those places but also by actively investigating the research of current thinking in archaeology; engaging through interviews, phone conversations and email exchanges with some of the leading figures in their fields. The list included Professor Mike Parker Pearson at UCL, Neil Wilkin, Bronze Age curator at the British Museum, and Dr Chris Standish, isotopic geochemist at University of Southampton. Ancient Wonderings main new insights were centred on the creative demonstration that the shadows of prehistory are not so far from our modern world. The innovative approach focused on taking current scientific findings on the past and making them more digestible to a general audience through a series of psychogeographic and imaginative travelogues into prehistoric Britain. The book reminded how ancient aspects that remain intriguing to us today, from stone circles and sacred markings, to gold and tin mines, are still embedded in the makeup of our physical landscape and so can still be visited and appreciated. A series of walks, workshops and talks allowed an engagement and interchange of ideas with public audiences across the country, with appearances at events ranging from the Essex Book Festival to Wigtown Literary Festival in Dumfries and Galloway disseminating the main findings of the work to an extensive range of people across Britain. A number of well-respected publications reviewed the work, including the Literary Review, enabling Ancient Wonderings to be appreciated across the country by a wide readership. The Times Literary Supplement described the book as 'well-crafted' and ‘engaging’, noting that the research approach was both '‘empirical and speculative'.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -