The European Archaeological Council (EAC) mentions ARIADNE in its recently published Amersfoort Agenda: “The ARIADNE project is an excellent European initiative in this regard and participation in this project should be strongly encouraged.”
The EAC is a network of the national bodies responsible under law for the management of the archaeological heritage throughout Europe including the appropriate agencies in federal contexts (e.g. German Länder, Swiss Cantons, Spanish autonomous regions etc). Its primary mission is to support the management of the archaeological heritage throughout Europe and to serve the needs of archaeological heritage management agencies by providing a forum for co-operation and exchange of information.
Amersfoort Agenda
The ‘Amersfoort Agenda’ is the EAC’s agenda for the future of the archaeological heritage management in Europe. It is the result of a working conference hosted by the Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency in Amersfoort in 2014 and aims to address new challenges in heritage management that have arisen since the Valetta Convention was published more than twenty years ago.
The Amersfoort Agenda has three main themes:
- Embedding archaeology in society. This includes amongst others encouraging public participation and the need for integrating archaeology into education;
- the importance of conscious, explicit and transparent choices in archaeological heritage management; and
- Archaeological data management in the digital age.
ARIADNE’s work is recognised under the third theme, which looks at managing the sources of European history and the importance of digital technologies in enabling collaboration and access. The agenda encourages the participation of European member states in networks and EU projects and programmes such as ARIADNE saying on page 21:
“It is essential to encourage the development of European data-sharing networks and projects in the field of archaeology. The ARIADNE project is an excellent European initiative in this regard and participation in this project should be strongly encouraged.”
The Amersfoort agenda can be found at: http://european-archaeological-council.org/files/amersfoort_agenda_english.…
For more information about the EAC see: http://european-archaeological-council.org