Introduction

“Interpretation” is a difficult concept to pin down. What’s it about? Who does it?

The mission of interpretation is strategic and inspirational. It is a combination of science, history, and art that aims to create memorable and meaningful experiences for visitors. Archeologists who interpret provide opportunities for people to explore ideas and meanings in natural and cultural resources and to arrive at their own conclusions about them.

Sometimes interpreters know they’ve hit the mark when visitors experience a transformative “aha!” moment, then show an increased interest and a deeper level of care for the resources. We want visitors to cultivate an ethic for stewardship to help us preserve and protect cultural resources. Interpretation helps archeologists get the word out that archeology is important and worthy of notice.

What is Interpretation?

Interpretation involves a set of tools and techniques to facilitate opportunities for people to form relationships with archeological resources. It helps them to realize the relevance of these special resources to their own lives and to make intellectual and emotional connections with their meanings.

Interpretation has come a long way since the National Park Service began offering interpretive programs. Over the history of the NPS, interpreters have developed methods and skills to help visitors realize the meaning of natural and cultural resources and the importance of stewardship practices. Many different approaches have been developed and tried. Creative thinkers continue to inspire interpreters as the field becomes increasingly professionalized. A few of their influences are discussed below:

Freeman Tilden

Many interpreters in the NPS consider Freeman Tilden a “hero” who gave “soul” to the field of interpretation. In the early 1940s, this former author of fiction began to write about the national parks with the encouragement of Director Newton B. Drury. Several books were the result: The National Parks: What They Mean to You and Me, The State Parks, Following the Frontier, and The Fifth Essence.

Tilden’s most influential book for the NPS was Interpreting Our Heritage, published in 1957. The book came as a reappraisal of the basic principles underlining the nature and history of interpretation programs in the NPS. In the process of writing it, Tilden led tours at Castillo de San Marcos National Monument and observed many programs elsewhere. The publication effectively gave form and substance to the profession of interpretation and was widely read within and beyond the NPS. It is still considered a classic discussion of interpretation.

Tilden based Interpreting Our Heritage on six principles:

1. Any interpretation that does not somehow relate what is being displayed or described to something within the personality or experience of the visitor will be sterile.
2. Information, as such, is not Interpretation. Interpretation is revelation based on information. But they are entirely different things. However, all interpretation includes information.
3. Interpretation is an art, which combines many arts, whether the materials presented are scientific, historical, or architectural. Any art is to some degree teachable.
4. The chief aim of Interpretation is not instruction, but provocation.
5. Interpretation should aim to present a whole rather than a part, and must address itself to the whole person rather than any phase.
6. Interpretation addressed to children (say, up to the age of twelve) should not be a dilution of the presentation to adults, but should follow a fundamentally different approach. To be at its best it will require a separate program.

Interpretive Development Program, National Park Service

Freeman Tilden’s work responded to a changing sense of the purposes of national parks. The NPS and its partners identified education to be a primary purpose of the national parks and even set out preliminary terminology that persists in interpretive programs today, such as “parks as classrooms.” Since then, national parks have tested a variety of interpretive methods but, of them all, personal interaction with the public has never fallen as a priority.

For over a decade the Ranger Careers program has testified to the significance of professional interpreters to the national parks. The Interpretive Development Program (IDP) aims to develop effective interpretation in NPS employees through training courses and standards. Conceived, reviewed, and refined by over 300 field interpreters, this program enables an employee and supervisor to tailor professional development efforts, increase efficiency, and demonstrate interpretation at a national standard. Grounded in "Ranger Careers," the IDP identifies essential "Benchmark Competencies" (knowledge, skills, and abilities) for every interpretive ranger in Ranger Careers positions. However, the program is widely applicable to anyone who does interpretive work or manages resources.

Interpretive Caricatures

The Division of Interpretation has created a set of common interpretive caricatures. Each captures elements of how some resource professionals approach the task. Consider as you read through them which elements relate to the various aspects of archeology, and keep them in the back of your mind as we go through the following sections. Remember that successful interpretation relies on aspects of all of them.

• Interpredata
• Presents multiple points of fact
• Honestly presents the facts and nothing but the facts
• Provides great detail to the facts
• Believes the audience is interested only in information
• Encourages factual dialogue
• Allows the audience to maintain its own perspective - as long as it is factual

All successful interpretation is built on accurate and comprehensive information. Information by itself has little significance to the majority of visitors who don’t understand a subject’s broader meanings and context. Interpredata usually fails to help the audience make personal connections to the resource. It gets the information out to visitors, but so what?

• Interpretainment
• Stereotypes multiple points of view for effect
• Arranges facts around a punch line
• Oversimplifies
• Comes from a perspective that the audience isn't truly interested in the meaning of the resource
• Allows dialogue only when it is shallow and contributes to the entertainment value of the show
• Does not care what the audience thinks, just how it reacts to the material

This perspective is satisfied with a pleasant visitor experience and values interpretation as entertaining. Certainly good interpretation engages attention and connects to audience interests, but interpretainment warps the concept. The result is a memorable personality or media presentation that fails to connect the audience to the resource itself. Interpretainment suggests ways to catch visitors, but it makes the delivery paramount to the meaning.

• Interpreganda
• Ignores multiple points of view
• Dishonestly skews facts toward a forgone conclusion
• Oversimplifies facts
• Comes from a perspective that the audience is ignorant
• Communicates in one direction by discouraging dialogue
• Attempts to force the audience to see only one perspective

Audiences usually know when they are told how to think, and don't like it. Interpreganda is most effective for visitors that already share the stated point of view. An often well-intentioned and passionate insistence on a single perspective is manipulative, didactic, fails to provide broader relevance, and does not connect the audience to the resources. An interpreganda approach can actually drive a wedge between the visitor and the interpreter.

• Interprecation
• Presents multiple points of view, but includes a correct answer
• Uses facts that support learning objectives
• Believes retention of information is most important
• Comes from the perspective that the audience needs to learn
• Encourages dialogue, but guides conversation toward what the audience should know
• Assumes that once the audience knows enough, they will agree

While education and interpretation are related and often overlap, they have significant differences. Educational goals are usually directed at the acquisition of knowledge and skill. Interpretation should support these goals and encourage partnerships with schools, elderhostels, and scout groups. These institutions have long-term influence over learning. Interpretation, however, is not measured by a test of knowledge at the program’s end. Rather, it facilitates an opportunity for people to make their own connections to meaning.

• Interpretation
• Presents multiple points of view
• Honestly presents information that leads the audience to personal revelation
• Isn't afraid of complexity
• Treats the audience as intelligent people
• Encourages dialogue
• Allows audiences to express and maintain their own perspectives

The profession of interpretation has an important and individual responsibility. Interpretation provokes the discovery of personal meaning, connection, and stewardship for resources. It allows for and stimulates a conversation about multiple meanings and points of view.

"So What?": Encouraging Stewardship

The National Park Service is charged with the management of some of our nation’s most significant cultural resources. The goal of the interpretation of archeology is for visitors to develop an ethic for stewardship through finding personal meaning in the resources. This isn’t necessarily as hard as it might seem: A recent poll by Harris Interactive suggests that the American public’s curiosity about archeology lays the groundwork. The poll shows that people think archeology has educational value and informs modern life; they also agree that laws should protect archeological resources. Interpretation plays an important role in cultivating the public’s curiosity and building a stewardship ethic.

We want visitors to move away from using the phrase “So what?” to express indifference for the resources. We want them to use “So what?” in another way, one that demonstrates critical thinking and personal involvement and dialogue in a subject. An ethic for understanding and protecting archeological resources comes from such connections.

Effective interpretation moves a visitor to realize the relevance and significance of resources in contemporary life and how he or she plays a role in protecting them. Archeologists can take the opportunity to encourage stewardship by the public as a way to spread the message of the importance of the field.

The relationship between resources, audience, and interpretation is key:

• Resources possess meanings and relevance, but they are complicated to interpret because individuals see different meanings in the same resources.
• Audiences seek something special about resources, something of particular value or resonance to them that is interesting, unique, or entertaining. While the interpreter’s primary goal is to provide accurate, balanced access to meanings and interpretation’s primary goal is to inspire audiences to care about the resources, audiences must be allowed to form their own passions and understandings aside from the interpreter.
• Interpretation, then, facilitates a connection between the interests of the visitor and the meanings of the resource. Audience interest and preservation go hand in hand: The public must care about a resource before people will value its preservation and, as a result, archeological resource preservation depends on the audience’s access to the meanings of the resources.

Interpretation connects the resource and the audience by presenting broadly relevant meaning. To attain this goal, “So what?” can be distilled into three steps within the interpretive process that are important for archeologists to understand and use successfully:

1. Define the relationship between resource, audience, and interpretation
2. Link tangible resources to intangible resources and meanings
3. Communicate universal concepts

Archeologists and interpreters should emphasize stewardship of archeological resources in any visitor exchange, from tours of archeological sites to exhibitions to discussions of ongoing fieldwork. Through effective preservation and protection, archeological resources can continue to convey their important history about people from the past to present and future generations of Americans.

Interpretive programs reach park visitors when they are still forming their opinions, value, and ethics. Long-term survival of park resources depends upon a stewardship ethic among the general population. The majority of threats to the resource are, by definition, caused by humans. Establishing a bond between visitors and the park can create a sense of shared ownership and lifelong commitment to park ethics.

Misconceptions About Interpretation

People may have misconceptions about what interpretation is and what interpreters do that keep them from trying it. Sometimes these misconceptions are based in different ways of approaching new information. Other times they come from a lack of dialogue about what interpreters aim to accomplish. Unfortunately, misconceptions about interpretation can keep archeologists from using it to explore the various ways of presenting their work and the significance of their park to the public.

Some of the misconceptions are:

• Interpreters don’t produce anything.
• Interpretation is too unstructured and not based in facts.
• Interpretation is about acting a part or presenting a single point of view.
• Interpreters focus on face-to-face interaction with the public.
• Interpretation doesn’t have a defined role in the National Park system.
• Interpretation isn’t a “real” profession.

Interpretation is important to archeologists because it tells people why our work is important to them. Decisions about how to interpret a site or an object influences exhibit presentations, public programs, cultural resources preservation, natural resources conservation, and more. Frequently, parks change as the interpretation of their themes evolves in response to public needs and interests. Interpretation, as a concept and as a practice, truly serves park management.

Sound familiar?

Archeologists are no strangers to misconceptions about their profession. In popular culture, archeologists are romantic characters who travel to exotic lands in search of mysterious artifacts. If you have done public archeology or interpretation before, you can probably list several questions visitors ask repeatedly that betray a lack of knowledge about the field. Archeologists who conduct interpretive programs can replace the public’s misconceptions about their work with accurate information about what they do. Archeologists’ interpretations can go far in imparting information about method, intent, significance, and meaning.

Creative responses to the misconceptions about archeology is an effective way for interpreters and archeologists to share information with the public to alleviate confusion that may lead visitors to misunderstand, or even abuse, archeological resources. In turn, greater understanding of archeological resources ideally provides a means for the public to appreciate and care for them.

Why Does the NPS Interpret Archeology?

The stewardship of America's archeological heritage is a well-established policy and function of the federal government. Interagency cooperation and partnerships are fundamental to this mission. Archeological resources—sites, collections, and records—are unique and fragile. We must use them wisely and protect them for future generations. NPS archeologists also interpret their work so that it gets out of academic or professional circles and into a larger public debate about the meaning of the past.

Through programs that preserve, protect, conserve, and educate the public regarding archeological resources the National Park Service preserves over 63,000 archeological sites, as well as huge archeological collections from scientific investigations of those sites. Interpreting archeological resources helps meet this part of the NPS mission by:

• Perpetuating and representing the archeological heritage of the nation uniquely reflected in national park units.
• Ensuring the natural, cultural, and recreational heritage reflected in the national park units is available and accessible to everyone.
• Providing visitor experiences that strengthen the recognition, understanding, enjoyment, and preservation of the nation's archeological resources.
• Creating the opportunity for audiences to ascribe meanings to archeological resources, leading to concern for the protection of those resources. Such revelation is the seed of archeological resource stewardship.

References

Bob Roney and David Larsen kindly lent the terms and definitions of “Interpredata,” “Interpreganda,” “Interpredata,” and “Interprecation.”

Portions of this chapter were adapted from:

Ellick, Carol J.

2000 Against the Clock: Introducing Archaeology in Time-Limited Situations. In The Archaeology Education Handbook: Sharing the Past with Kids, pp. 183-191. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA.

Ham, Sam H.

1992 Environmental Interpretation: A Practical Guide for People with Big Ideas and Small Budgets, North American Press, Golden, CO.

Interpretive Development Program: Professional Standards for Learning and Performance.

Larsen, David L.

2003 Meaningful Interpretation: How to Connect Hearts and Minds to Places, Objects, and Other Resources. Eastern National Parks Association.

Little, Barbara J.

1998 Considering the Context of Historical Archaeology for Museum Interpretation. In The Public Historian, Vol. 20, No. 4 pp. 111-117. Regents of the University of California and the National Council on Public History.

Mackintosh, Barry

1986 Interpretation in the National Park Service: A Historical Perspective

National Park Service

1997 Cultural Resources Management Guide, Release No. 5. National Park Service, Washington, D.C.

National Park Service

2002 The Interpretive Process Model

NPS Training Manager for Interpretation, Education, and Cooperating Associations (editor)

1998 Module 101: Fulfilling the NPS Mission: The Process of Interpretation. National Park Service, Washington, D.C.

Ramos, Maria and Davis Duganne

2000 Exploring Public Perceptions and Attitudes about Archaeology. Harris Interactive for the Society for American Archaeology, Washington, D.C.

Robinson, George

1990 Biographical Vignettes: Freeman Tilden, In National Park Service, the First 75 Years, Eastern National Park & Monument Association.

Tilden, Freeman

1957 Interpreting Our Heritage, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC.