ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the historical archaeology that are interrelated; preservation, supplementing or challenging history, and reconstructing lifeways are all connected with each other and intertwined with the meanings of the past in today's society. Analyzing material evidence with the purpose of discovering something as supposedly straightforward as how people fed them can end up challenging taken-for-granted ideas about the past. The chapter explores some of the implications of heritage areas as places of public historical commemoration and then turn to Elmina Castle and Dungeons in Ghana, where Ghanaians and African Americans are in conflict over preservation and presentation. Governments at all levels still create parks. However, such public land ownership is no longer as prominent a method of protecting naturally or culturally significant areas. Social inclusion falls to the heritage professionals to identify the interested public and to perform outreach that gets more of the public interested and willing to participate.
