Engagement and Management: Developing a Monitoring System for Open-air Rock Art in the UK and Ireland

ABSTRACT

Neolithic and Early Bronze Age rock carvings in the United Kingdom and Ireland represent an internationally unique rock art tradition as it is, to the best of our knowledge, the only wholly abstract global rock art tradition. This heritage resource is, however, under threat from an array of factors, such as increasing population densities and agricultural intensity. In this paper, we report on the Condition Assessment Risk Evaluation (CARE) project that had as one of its primary objectives the co-production of a user-friendly, non-invasive condition assessment risk evaluation Toolkit for gathering and organising information essential for the long-term conservation of open-air rock art. We describe the public involvement CARE process through co-experience participatory focus groups, which evaluated the Toolkit, concluding that we can have confidence in the results obtained from the public. Furthermore, the variables that form part of the Toolkit and related management recommendations are presented.

KEYWORDS:

• Open-air rock art
• monitoring
• condition assessment
• risk evaluation
• co-production

Acknowledgements

Our thanks are due to: Professor David Graham, Peter Lewis, Dr Patricia Warke for their significant contribution to the CARE project; the members of the Advisory Board (Chris Burgess, John Hughes, Chris Jones, David Manning and Kate Wilson); colleagues who contributed to the fieldwork (Beate Christgen, Rebecca Enlander, David Graham, Peter Lewis, Jen Roberts and Patricia Warke); the landowner/managers who we interviewed; and, members of the public who participated in the focus groups. Professor David Graham is thanked for the creation and interpretation of Figures 11 and 12.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Science and Heritage Programme (AH/K006320/1).

Notes on contributors

Aron D. Mazel

Aron D. Mazel is Reader in Heritage Studies at Newcastle University and Research Associate at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Myra J. Giesen

Myra J. Giesen is Visiting Fellow in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology and Research Associate in the School of Engineering, both Newcastle University