Visitor management and the preservation of rock art: Two case studies of open air rock art sites in north eastern Portugal: Côa Valley and Mazouco

Abstract

Since the opening in 1996 of the Parque Arqueológico Vale do Côa (Côa Valley Archaeological Park, PAVC) the visitation scheme implemented has come under intense scrutiny and criticism, mostly from Portuguese archaeologists and the local community. Considering these criticisms and some examples of different management strategies employed in other Open Air Rock Art Sites in the northeastern area of Portugal and also in the rest of the world, this paper aims to discuss visitor access systems from a preservation versus public access, socio-economic perspective. Since visitors are one of the main stakeholders in Cultural Heritage Resources management, their feelings and opinions on public access schemes will also be assessed by means of a survey that aims to determine visitor satisfaction levels in the Côa Valley. Likewise, other stakeholders' and local community's views on development and visitor management will be considered by means of interviews and articles published in the local and national press. The intent is to demonstrate that rock art sites, because of their special nature, especially the ones situated in this area of the Iberian Peninsula, require particular approaches, namely in the implementation of visitor access systems.