Julian emphasises the importance of the site: The site may be important to archaeologists and the WHS is logged as having outstanding universal value by UNESCO. However, this is not quite the same as proving importance. To show importance, one would need to show that the value is high and that the value will be adversely affected by change. In order to do that, one would need to show what the value is (to humanity): UNESCO's structure singles out sites with a high relative value (to humanity), but it does not put a value (valuation) to those sites.
A question that archaeologists seem to me to be reluctant to tackle is why archaeological remains have value to humanity. Once the potential(s) for value are known, they can usually be defined using quantifiable methods. If value is not defined using a quantifiable method, you will have a lot of difficulty countering the additional capital, user and environmental costs of doing something else.
I hope that the above is not too cryptic. I've possible spent too much time looking at methods of assessing environmental value and writing about it for engineering audiences. If the language is a bit obtuse, let me know. Though it may not appear to be so, the above is intended to be helpful.
You say to prove the importance of somewhere like the Stonehenge WHS we would need to demonstrate its value to humanity. Well we can certainly demonstrate its value to the National Trust and English Heritage - it must be their biggest earner. Even more so if you take the fleeting view of it away by sticking the traffic underground using the least expensive option. But this is where the emotion comes in - I personally do not like new roads, underground or overground. I was on the side of Swampy all those years ago when stuck himself up a tree to protest against the Newbury by-pass (having been on the Newbury by-pass recently, I can confirm it is hellish).
"A question that archaeologists seem to me to be reluctant to tackle is why archaeological remains have value to humanity." That seems to fly in the face of everything this web-site is about. Can we not have a Blakean view of our world, investigating and protecting 'the past' without putting 'value' on it. The past is our compass in many ways; the Neolithic past is our great mystery - so near and yet so far.
