Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to explore approaches to assigning ‘value’ to the peatland archaeological record within south west Britain, with a particular focus on the uplands.

Paper long abstract:

This paper seeks to explore approaches to assigning 'value' to the peatland archaeological record within south west Britain, with a particular focus on the uplands. Peat can bury artefacts and land surfaces, as well as preserving a variety of organic remains. The accumulating organic nature of the sediment means that these remains can be set in historical and environmental context. There are moves towards developing ecosystem services approaches to peatland management, which is a reflection of the breadth of environmental and social values currently attributed to these environments. For example, peatlands are considered important for carbon and hydrological management, the maintenance of ecological diversity, and for their aesthetic or recreational value. It is essential that appropriate methods for assessing the historic environment values of peatland are developed, so that archaeological resources can be fully integrated into holistic management of the uplands. Within the region, spatially-extensive peatland restoration projects are underway, which makes the need to assess 'value' timely. Although the aims of restoration projects are often in harmony with archaeological interests (rewetting, maintenance of high water tables), they have highlighted a problem that archaeology increasingly faces: to protect archaeological 'assets' we must be able to place 'values' on them. Within this paper we will attempt to address the following questions: What makes a peatlands important to archaeology, and can we assess this without large-scale investigation? How can we communicate this to various stakeholder groups? Would assessing the 'sensitivity' of the resource avoid the loaded nature of attempting to 'value' it?