International awards grow for real-life ancient forensic thriller

A new book that explores the mystery of Europe’s ‘bog bodies’ and sheds new light on our prehistoric past has scooped its second prestigious international award.

Likened to a real-life forensic thriller, Bog Bodies Uncovered by Miranda Aldhouse-Green, Emeritus Professor in the School of History, Archaeology and Religion has won the Archaeological Institute of America’s AIA Felicia Holton book award.

At a national level, the book has also just been nominated for the Current Archaeology Book of the Year Award 2017.

The book, which takes a radically different approach akin to a criminal investigation to existing and new prehistoric ‘cold’ cases from the peat bogs of Europe, has drawn wide praise for both its method and delivery.

“With clear, probing analysis, the benefit of recent discoveries, forensic science and her own deep knowledge of late prehistoric cultures, Miranda Aldhouse-Green brings us face-to-face with the past” commented former Chief Archaeologist at English Heritage David Miles. “Archaeology does not get more up close and personal than this.”

Award-winning crime novelist Val McDermid adds:  “We can never know for certain how these bodies ended up with this very particular form of burial. All we can do is interrogate what is left. And that is what this book does so satisfyingly.”

The award-winning archaeologist and fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London will accept the prestigious award at the 2017 Archaeological Institute of America in Toronto on 6th January.

The 2017 Current Archaeology awards will be announced at the Current Archaeology Live! conference in London on 24 February. Voting, including for Book of the Year, commences on 1st December.

Bog Bodies Uncovered is published by Thames and Hudson.