Valuing Material Cultural Heritage: Engaging Audience(s) Through Development-Led Archaeological Research

Abstract This proposal aims to focus on development-led archaeological research in terms of valuing material cultural heritage investigations and how to engage the audience(s). As a case study, Besoitaormaetxea Baserria , a farmhouse in Berriz (Biscay, Basque Country, Spain), is analysed, where archaeological data and material culture can lead us through the occupation of the landscape and its several phases. The main goal of this proposal is to generate links and relationships and provide value and meaning to heritage, engaging the public(s) and promoting its conservation through its understanding. This initiative leads from a development-led archaeological and historical research, which has resulted in several dissemination activities through community participation. It is, therefore, a project about education and heritage sensitisation, in which possible and multiple lines are used to generate relations and to provide value and meaning – based on historical knowledge– through the stakeholders involved. In this sense, it is set up that archaeological activities and studies, including those carried out from a development-led practice, when provided with the necessary apparatus and contexts of application, are tools with a great ability to attract the audience(s) to build heritage and educators.