Francis Pryor

Francis Pryor
Pryor (right) discusses the excavation during the filming of a 2007 dig for Time Team with series editor Michael Douglas (left).
Born	Francis Manning Marlborough Pryor (1945-01-13) 13 January 1945 (age 72)
Occupation	Archaeologist, Prehistorian
Known for	Flag Fen, Time Team

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.

Born to a Burke's Landed Gentry family, Pryor studied at Eton College before going on to study archaeology at Trinity College, Cambridge. With his first wife, he moved to Canada, where he worked as a technician at the Royal Ontario Museum for a year before returning to England.

He has now retired from full-time field archaeology, but still appears on television and writes books as well as being a working sheep farmer.

Pryor is the son of Barbara Helen Robertson and Robert Matthew Marlborough Pryor MBE TD (known as Matthew), as well as being the grandson of Walter Marlborough Pryor DSO DL JP; both his father and grandfather had been British Army officers, serving in the First and Second World Wars respectively. He was educated at Temple Grove School in East Sussex, then at Eton College alongside his first cousin William Pryor, before studying archaeology at Trinity College, Cambridge, gaining a PhD in 1985.