Creative Public-Centered Approaches to Compliance Archaeology

Public engagement is an important component of compliance projects. The involvement of the public in compliance archaeology is inherent in the National Historic Preservation Act as well as many state historic preservation programs. The benefits of such involvement are numerous and provide an important opportunity to inform the public about the importance of archaeology and stewardship of the archaeological record. The integration of diverse constituencies in such efforts however, is not without its challenges and it has long been recognized that when involving the public in such projects, there is no such thing as a single public engagement model that fits all situations. This symposium provides an overview of the ways that American archaeologists have engaged the public in compliance work and the creative archaeological programs that have been developed as a result of publically funded archaeology projects.