ABSTRACT
At the start of the project, the local community understood little of the significance of the archaeological heritage and therefore also cared little for it, and they did not connect their existing values for the peak to the archaeological site. It was important, therefore to connect the heritage that was important to them with the archaeological site that was important to us. With this in mind, we set a strategy with several complementary objectives for our public engagement work. These included: (1) informing and raising the awareness of the local community about the peak sanctuary site; (2) making the site relevant to the local community and connecting it to their lives and (3) and fostering and enabling the community’s engagement with protecting their heritage. In order to achieve each of these objectives, we employed a multidisciplinary host of techniques, many of which were borrowed from psychology, cognitive science, marketing and linguistics.
