EAA 2015

Our session at the 21st Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in Glasgow, 2nd – 5th September 2015, was part of the Legacies and Visions theme.

Landscape legacies in World Heritage Sites
– recording for conservation and management.

Angela Gannon, Mark Bowden, Steve Davis and Kristín Huld Sigurðardóttir

Landscapes provide the dynamic backdrop to our lives, combining physical landforms with the imprint of human intervention. All landscapes and our perceptions of them are our legacy from the past; each generation becomes the custodian of this unique and inspirational resource.  Since the adoption of the 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, the World Heritage List has taken account of this legacy, so that today 810 exceptional landscapes are recognised globally, wholly or partly for their cultural value – a remarkable achievement. But alongside this inscription come the responsibilities of managing, protecting and conserving for the future.

World Heritage Sites express long and intimate relationships between peoples and their natural environment but they too are increasingly threatened not simply by destruction and decay but also by changing social and economic conditions. Co-hosted by the Landscape Survey Group, this session will explore the changing role of archaeological survey and recording within World Heritage Sites through the application of methodologies both traditional and innovative, and how this underpins and informs understanding and appreciation of these exceptional inherited landscapes for their longer term preservation
and protection.