The New Public Archaeology: Evolving concepts in international public archaeology and interpretation

Summary

In this presentation I discuss evolving concepts in public archaeology and interpretation. I give two examples, one from South Carolina, USA, and the other, as of early 2014, in Crimea, Ukraine, on how these concepts have been proposed and applied at sites and parks. In many parts of the West, the overarching trend is an increasing involvement of non-professionals in planning and carrying out archaeological and cultural heritage studies and public interpretation. We look at three evolving concepts in public archaeology: Activist Archaeology; Inclusive Public Interpretation and Presentation; and Sustainable Cultural/Archaeological/Heritage Tourism. Outside the West, when these principles are introduced, for cultural and political reasons, many sites and parks are challenged to adapt and may even reject them. In these arenas, our continuing exchanges of experience and concepts, our collegial collaborations, can build trust as lessons are learned on both sides about the international applicability and feasibility of these principles.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Managing Archaeological Heritage in the 21st Century

Keywords