Consists of 21 papers for the Thematic Session on Archaeological Heritage Management of the General Assembly.

This book results from discussions at the 1982 World Archaeological Congress on 'Public Archaeology and Cultural Resource Management'. It brings to everyone's notice the common need of a coherent, well-planned response to the potentially destructive threats of development and tourism to archaeology.

In 1985, Petra was included on the list of World Heritage Sites. Since then, low cost jet travel and a fast highway from Amman have made the site increasingly accessible. This book asks the question: will tourism damage the archaeological remains there in ways that make answers more difficult or even impossible to find?

This book undertakes a comparative study of the history and development of legislative and administrative systems in operation today for the protection of archaeological monuments. With the exception of Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, no country adopted a positive policy towards the protection and conservation of its archaeological and historical heritage until the twentieth century. Moreover, it was not until the middle of that century, under the threat of wholesale devastation from extensive schemes for social and economic development, that the accelerating disappearance of the sites and monuments of Antiquity became the object of intensive study and legislation. Since then systems of cultural resource management have developed throughout the world. A range of countries (from Europe, America, Asia and Africa) representing a diversity of political and ideological systems - capitalist, socialist and ex-colonial - have been selected as being broadly representative of the variety of these systems. The case studies have been written by distinguished archaeologists and provide critical evaluations of the objectives and shortcomings of these systems.

Archaeological sites opened to the public, and especially those highly photogenic sites that have achieved iconic status, are often major tourist attractions. By opening an archaeological site to tourism, threats and opportunities will emerge.The threats are to the archaeological record, the pre-historic or historic materials in context at the site that can provide facts about human history and the human relationship to the environment. The opportunities are to share what can be learned at archaeological sites and how it can be learned. The latter is important because doing so can build a public constituency for archaeology that appreciates and will support the potential of archaeology to contribute to conversations about contemporary issues, such as the root causes and possible solutions to conflict among humans and the social implications of environmental degradation. In this volume we will consider factors that render effective management of archaeological sites open to the public feasible, and therefore sustainable. We approach this in two ways: The first is by presenting some promising ways to assess and enhance the feasibility of establishing effective management. Assessing feasibility involves examining tourism potential, which must consider the demographic sectors from which visitors to the site are drawn or might be in the future, identifying preservation issues associated with hosting visitors from the various demographic sectors, and the possibility and means by which local communities might be engaged in identifying issues and generating long-term support for effective management. The second part of the book will provide brief case studies of places and ways in which the feasibility of sustainable management has been improved.

Representing the latest thinking in this fast-moving and often emotive field, this book offers a remarkably comprehensive international coverage of the public aspects of archaeology. The process of survey and inventory, rescue and archaeology, conservation and protection have until now been studied largely on the basis of individual countries and their administrative and legislative structures. Now, by virtue of its broad geographical coverage, this volume provides many rights and guidelines not hitherto brought into focus: the history and philosophy of archaeological heritage management, case studies (regional, national and specialised), and the training and qualification of archaeologists for heritage management. This book is essential reading for all students, researchers and practitioners concerned with archaeological heritage management, public administration and the legal community whose work involves archaeological issues.