REFIT: Resituating Europe's first towns: A case study in enhancing knowledge transfer and developing sustainable management of cultural landscapes

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Understanding and integrating stakeholders as active creators and beneficiaries of cultural landscapes is an essential but under-developed element of archaeological heritage research. Through research focusing on some of the most significant monuments in European history (Late Iron Age oppida: c.200BC-AD60), this project will focus on understanding and engaging under-represented users (SMEs/wildlife organisations/farmers) unaware of the value of this pan-European phenomenon. Despite their significance as Europe's first urbanism, oppida are poorly recognised and underdeveloped as foci for cultural and economic sustainability. By maximising the impact of existing expertise on managing oppida in Europe through trans-national cooperation, this project will fore-front non-academic stakeholders (wildlife organisations; farmers; SMEs; National Parks), to develop better sustainable ways of exploring and exploiting this resource. It aims to examine current perceptions and engagement with these monuments & contrasting management/engagement strategies across Europe. Utilizing identified best-practice from different countries it will then implement novel engagement strategies (Digital open-access field guides; SME participatory events; open workshops) at European case studies in France, Spain and the UK. The aim is to develop high-quality transferable tools for engagement which can be transferred to other sites across the continent. This project directly fits the Heritage Plus aims and topics in addressing how we develop sustainable strategies for managing cultural heritage and examine the ways in which we can use that heritage. It does so by focusing on examining the perceptions and needs of all stakeholders (e.g. Ecologists; Wildlife managers; Businesses) and integrating them directly in to research activities. This project will use trans-national expertise to develop a set of strategies which can act as exemplars in how to revitalise the role in society of under-recognised elements of Europe's heritage.