Born Jessie Jacquetta Hopkins, she is perhaps best known for her book "A Land" (1951). She was a prolific writer of works about subjects that were quite removed from her principal field. She was above all interested in discovering the lives of the peoples that were revealed by scientific excavations. With Christopher Hawkes, she co-authored "Prehistoric Britain" (1943) and with J. B. Priestley she wrote "Dragon's Mouth" (1952) and "Journey Down a Rainbow" (1955). Her other works include "The World of the Past" (1963), "Prehistory (History of Mankind: Cultural and Scientific Development, Volume 1 Part 1)" (1963) prepared with Sir Leonard Woolley under the auspices of UNESCO, "The Atlas of Early Man" (1976) and "The Shell Guide to British Archaeology" (1986).