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.

This book will suggest new agendas for identity and heritage studies by means of presenting contentious issues facing archaeology and heritage management in a globalized world. The book is not only present the variability of heritage objectives and experiences in the New and Old World, and opens a discussion, in a shrinking world, to look beyond national and regional contexts. If the heritage sector and archaeology are to remain relevant in our contemporary world and the near future, there are a number of questions concerning the politics, practices and narratives related to heritage and identity that must be addressed. Questions of relevance in an affluent, cosmopolitan setting are at odds with those relevant for a region emerging from civil war or ethnic strife, or a national minority battling oppression or ethnic cleansing. A premise is that heritage represents a broad scope of empirically and theoretically sound interpretations - that heritage is a response to contemporary forces, as much as data. It is therefore necessary constantly to evaluate what is scientifically accurate as well as what is valid and relevant and what can have a contemporary impact.

Mapping Archaeological Landscapes from Space offers a concise overview of air and spaceborne imagery and related geospatial technologies tailored to the needs of archaeologists. Leading experts including scientists involved in NASA's Space Archaeology program provide technical introductions to five sections: 1) Historic Air and Spaceborne Imagery 2) Multispectral and Hyperspectral Imagery 3) Synthetic Aperture Radar 4) Lidar 5) Archaeological Site Detection and Modeling Each of these five sections includes two or more case study applications that have enriched understanding of archaeological landscapes in regions including the Near East, East Asia, Europe, Meso- and North America. Targeted to the needs of researchers and heritage managers as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, this volume conveys a basic technological sense of what is currently possible and, it is hoped, will inspire new pioneering applications. Particular attention is paid to the tandem goals of research (understanding) and archaeological heritage management (preserving) the ancient past. The technologies and applications presented can be used to characterize environments, detect archaeological sites, model sites and settlement patterns and, more generally, reveal the dialectic landscape-scale dynamics among ancient peoples and their social and environmental surroundings. In light of contemporary economic development and resultant damage to and destruction of archaeological sites and landscapes, applications of air and spaceborne technologies in archaeology are of wide utility and promoting understanding of them is a particularly appropriate goal at the 40th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention.

The publication explores the ways in which archaeological research can inform us about the manner and motives of European involvement in the development of a sovereign United States. The five chapters focus on different archaeological sites (four terrestrial sites) and each consider the special ways in which archaeology can contribute to our understanding of the cultural dynamics that set the historic course of events in motion that culminated in United States sovereignty. An introduction and conclusion examine how the material culture that is the central focus of archaeological research should be preserved, managed, and interpreted. While much is known through historical documents, this volume seeks to enrich, modify, and challenge the written record by attention to the archaeological remains. The scale of analysis ranges from the artifact through the site to the landscape. Chapters address the changing relationships between specific European countries and the United States as indicated by the presence of artifacts or types of artifacts (e.g., weapons, domestic, architectural) made or traded by other countries during different time periods; an analysis of "space syntax" seen at battlefields or fortifications; the importance of conceptually reconstructing terrain crossed by troops or at battlefields. The Archaeology of Interdependence: European Involvement in the Development of a Sovereign United States presents innovative investigations of what material culture at all scales might tell us about the political, economic, or ideological relationships among cultures that corroborates, contradicts, or enriches the historic record.

Once visited only by the cognoscenti of the ancient world, over the last decade Petra has drawn almost a million visitors in some years. Petra burst into popular consciousness with the release of enormously popular motion picture Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981. Moviegoers all over the world were introduced to some of the spectacular scenic wonders of Petra: the Siq, a narrow chasm with colorful, towering sandstone walls, and Al-Khazna, the exquisitely carved tomb for a Nabataean king. For centuries, the Nabataeans controlled the trade in precious commodities across the Arabian Peninsula, bring spices from Southeast Asia, incense from present-day Yemen, gold and ivory from Africa, and silk from the Far East across the Empty Quarter to ports on the western Mediterranean. In 1985, Petra was included on the list of World Heritage Sites. Since then, low cost jet travel and a fast highway from the capital city of Amman have made the site increasingly accessible. The Jordanian government has made attracting tourists to Jordan a top priority. For all of the attention that Petra has received, it is still surprisingly poorly understood. A widely accepted chronology of the city, even the dates of major tombs and monuments, has yet to be established. Even the mystery of why and how Arab nomads adopted a sedentary lifestyle and built a great city has yet to be fully explained. Will Petra's popularity as a tourism destination overshadow the importance of addressing these questions, and, more importantly, will tourism damage the archaeological remains there in ways that make answers more difficult or even impossible to find?

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.

From about 1830 to 1849, Bent's Old Fort, located in present-day Colorado on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail, was the largest trading post in the Southwest and the mountain-plains region. Although the raw enterprise and improvisation that characterized the American westward movement seem to have little to do with ritual, Douglas Comer argues that the fort grew and prospered because of ritual and that ritual shaped the subsequent history of the region to an astonishing extent. At Bent's Old Fort, rituals of trade, feasting, gaming, marriage, secret societies, and war, as well as the 'calcified ritual' provided by the fort itself, brought together and restructured Anglo, Hispanic, and American Indian cultures. Comer sheds new light on this heretofore poorly understood period in American history, building at the same time a powerfully convincing case to demonstrate that the human world is made through ritual. Comer gives his narrative an anthropological and philosophical framework; the events at Bent's Old Fort provide a compelling example not only of 'world formation' but of a world's tragic collapse, culminating in the Sand Creek massacre. He also calls attention to the reconstructed Bent's Old Fort on the site of the original. Here visitors reenact history, staff work out personal identities, and groups lobby for special versions of history by ritual recasting of the past as the present.