Arkeolojik Alanların Korunmasında Paydaş Olarak Çocuklar: Mersin Yumuktepe Höyüğü Örneği

Abstract

The level of public education, consciousness and awareness has an important effect on sustaining the conservation of urban and rural archaeological areas. Local people are one of the main stakeholders in providing conservation of archaeological sites and gaining benefit within public interest concept; children may have the most important place in this group. Despite the first legal regulations in conservation of cultural heritage was developed to conserve the archaeological sites in Turkey; considering the damages caused by people, it can be said that conservation has not yet become a common social behaviour. The necessity of conservation must be introduced from childhood in order to develop a social behaviour. This paper aims to share the methods and results of the activities organized in two schools within the project on protection, presentation and tourism infrastructure development of Yumuktepe and environment, with the intention to contribute to the development of national strategy on awareness studies. In this context, the first part of the paper gives brief information about the interaction between social behaviour and legal aspects in conservation, after which, the place of conservation awareness in education-awareness relations is introduced, in the third part the method and results of the project is presented. The final part includes proposals for developing a national strategy for rising awareness.