ABSTRACT
Our work offered various insights including 1) that it is important to conduct a public archaeology program before, not just during, other heritage management work; 2) the implications of our ‘values obsessed’ approach and of our consideration of the local community as experts in their own right; 3) and the significance of grassroots empowerment as a type of public archaeology that is not only an end but also a means for more effective and sustainable heritage management projects. A common theme of these conclusions is the importance of a focus on people. People are both the bearers of heritage values and the guardians and beneficiaries of heritage sites. This may sound like stating the obvious, but very often heritage managers and particularly archaeologists and conservators are so absorbed in their efforts to conserve the remnants of the past in the form of the physical fabric of heritage sites that they neglect this human, living dimension of heritage. Our project was small in scale, and was implemented with limited resources in a rural location - characteristics that are shared with the majority of public heritage projects globally. We therefore believe that many of the lessons learned can be relevant can be the inspiration for relevant action elsewhere.
