Footmarks

A thoughtful reminder that our ancestors were once living moving people, with lives as meandering as our own.

Footmarks introduces a concept. It is neither a dry non-fiction analysis of archaeological sites, nor a sensationalised narrative, Footmarks explores our connection to our ancestors through the similarities and traces that remain in how peoples of the past moved across the earth. The curiosity of children as evidenced in footprints left behind, the exploration and migrations that have happened since visible human behaviour can be traced, the language of movement in our place names, and the language we use to discuss thoughts. Footmarks discusses how journeys are not just a physical act of travelling from one place to another, but a part of our communication, our link to the earth, and to each other. Archaeology is often concentrated on sites, fixed places, not the spaces in between, and the lives and laughter that would have echoed as people made their way in, around, through, over, between those places, or simply walking to nowhere at all.

Each chapter discusses a different type of movement, from the small steps to the vast ocean voyages, all evidenced with examples that encourage readers to investigate more, and all threaded with Jim Leary's personal journeys through his career, his relationship with his family, and personal loss.

This will interest anyone who looks at our world and it's history with curiosity, and is the kind of book that will find you searching for others on the various topics introduced. I recommend reading this on a bright morning, you'll find the hills and vast skies calling after you've read it, so spare time for this and a good walk after.

I read this with a little bit of trepidation, because the author is a colleague of mine, though he didn't know I was going to read this, and I didn't know he had written it, until I saw it on Netgalley. I don't tend to read books by people I know in case I don't like them, or can't give high enough praise, but I genuinely enjoyed this.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.