Archaeological Heritage Management in riverine landscapes

<p>During the last 10-15 years flooding of the Rhine, Elbe, Meuse and other rivers has caused severe damage to the countries of Europe. Water management projects were initiated in order to prevent such disastrous effects in the future. These projects are often combined with large scale gravel extraction and nature development schemes. The areas involved stretch from the riverbed to 1 km or more inland. Projects of this kind and volume may have a devastating impact on the preservation of archaeological resources, but offer also huge possibilities for archaeo-logical research. The archaeological record is in many cases covered by thick layers of sediment. Therefore, conservation conditions can be very good. In a session, held on 9 September 2004 in Lyon at the 10th annual meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, archaeologists from several countries presented 11 papers about the possibilities and the results of archaeological heritage management and research in riverine landscapes.</p><p>The subject was not only archaeological heritage management in the scope of flood prevention. It also included post-flood archaeological investigations and more generally all archaeology performed in riverine landscapes. Attention has been paid to the quantity and quality and the particularities of the archaeological record in this type of landscape, to the possibilities for preservation, to the development of research agendas for riverine landscapes and to the methodology of survey and excavation. Immediately after the session, the participants concluded that it should be useful to publish the presented papers. Eight speakers submitted a copy of their paper.</p>