Toward an Intermediate Level: Making the Most of Evaluation in Italian Community Archaeology

Abstract

Over the last decade public and community archaeology have established themselves as essential parts of the Italian contemporary archaeological debate, as a result of work at a series of venues and a growing commitment to public engagement within fieldwork. However, data and evaluation reports about participation are rarely found in academic literature, limiting the development of a critical attitude to the topic. This paper attempts to outline a specific scenario for the development of Italian community archaeology as a proper field of research. This scenario consists of two main stages: the development of a shared attitude to evaluation and the creation of a native theoretical framework. Between them there is the ‘intermediate level’, that may be properly considered as the comparison and interpretation of the data resulting from the multiple evaluation processes conducted in Italian community archaeology projects in the context of the existing international theoretical framework. The brief presentation of an evaluation process conducted for the case study of ‘Uomini e Cose a Vignale’ — a long-term excavation project in Tuscany jointly managed by archaeologists and local stakeholders — fosters a reflection on specific opportunities provided by conceiving evaluation as a first step toward an ‘intermediate level’.