Community Archaeology Guidance Resource Review

This document has been prepared in response to a brief issued by The New Forest National Park Authority to identify, review and assess guidance resources that are readily accessible to volunteers and community groups undertaking their own archaeological investigations.
Over three hundred and fifty archaeological guidance resources have been identified and listed in a form that aids comparison of the content and format of different resources and guidance. However, it appears that there has been limited evaluation of the use and impact of these resources prior to this research.
Focus groups and an online survey were undertaken in order to find out how community volunteer archaeologists access and use these existing guides and what they would like to see from future community resources. The focus groups provided more detailed local insights and informed the questions asked in the online survey.
The results demonstrate that here is a demand for simple ‘how-to’ guides with signposting to more detailed information produced by well-recognised and easily identifiable sources, particularly at national and regional (county) level. The extent of knowledge exchange and local adaption of guidance resources has probably been underestimated, and indicates that the professional archaeological sector needs to do more to understand and aid the transfer of accurate, reliable and user-friendly information amongst community volunteer archaeologists.
There is already a large amount of material readily available on a wide range of topics but there is an evident problem of knowing what has already been produced and searching for it. There are also some notable gaps in guidance materials, particularly on running projects and reporting and disseminating the results. Online, there is a tendency not to refer to specific sources of guidance but to use Internet search engines to find information but it should not be presumed that use of social media platforms and other online services is universal. Many community volunteer archaeologists still like to have written notes to accompany electronic media such as videos, and want to refer to hard copies of information when collecting data or taking a break from using screens. This report includes a number of recommendations for future community resource creation and maintenance, and a toolkit for consulting community volunteer archaeologists about guidance materials and support.