Working with communities: Public participation from the archaeologists’ perspective

ABSTRACT Opinions and practices in regard to public participation in archaeology vary widely in different countries. While so-called ‘community digs' and other forms of participation are very common in the UK and volunteering opportunities can be easily found on the internet, the situation in Germany and Italy is different. Although public participation does exist in the two continental countries, it is not as widespread as in the UK, because of various different obstacles, e.g. permit systems. To identify the challenges that archaeologists have to face when working with the public as well as to better understand professional archaeologists’ attitudes towards public participation and see whether different laws and policies have shaped them, a survey was conducted amongst British, German and Italian archaeologists.