Two levels of interpretation

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Two levels of interpretation
The interpretations of the historic site or
monument occur at two distinctly different
levels professional and popular
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professional

• The professional staff examines all the available
  evidence in order to reconstruct the monument
  either hypothetically or in full-scale,
  three-dimensional actuality.
• professional staff architect, archaeologist,
  art historian, social historian
• available evidence --excavations, buildings,
  artifacts, and documents

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popular

• It becomes possible to interpret the monument
  for the education or edification of the general
  public.
• Interpretation at this secondary level is
  becoming a subspecialty in itself.

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Orthodox archaeology

• Orthodox archaeology has always based its
  interpretation of a given site or monument upon
• artifact itself
• literature related to it (moving back and forth
  from artifact to document to ensure as accurate
  an interpretation as possible. )

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Shortcomingsof Orthodox archaeology

• prehistoric-sites
• there will be no documentation at all
• it will often be verbal rather than graphic,
• with all the uncertainties and ambiguities
  which that implies.

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How to deal with that problem?

• Three Experiments
• Helen Bullock researches Colonial Williamsburg
  (southeastern Virginia )
• The Danish Experiment HansOle Hansen
  investigates Iron Age culture of Denmark
• THE Plimoth Plantation Experiment
• James Deetz reconstructed Puritan village of
  Plimoth Plantation

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Helen Bullock researches Colonial Williamsburg

• Main job To restore the Williamsburg kitchens
• resources to begin with
• these resources did not afford sufficiently
  precise guides to the restoration and furnishing
  of specific kitchens.

a hue and growing collection of culinary tools,
utensils,

• and fireplace equipment

• dozens of kitchens in varying states of decay,
  repair, and alteration,

and a unique collection of cookbooks of the era
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Operating method

• Ms. Bullock decided on an unprecedented step
  using the artifacts and the literary sources, she
  would attempt to replicate the actual processes
  of frying, baking, boiling, and grilling.
• trial and error

http//www.history.org
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Finding

• cook would have had a number of small fires going
  at the same time on the same large hearth, each
  of a different size and hence a different
  temperature
• comfort dictated the locus of different cooking
  operations across the hearth
• as well as convenient storage positions for
  various tools and utensils
• Safety was another consideration
• ---means of extinguishing accidental fires. ..

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important contribution to interpretive
methodology

• new dimension for historical research and
  interpretation
• the centric of studies has been literally
  transferred from the classroom to the actual
  monument

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• Has been developed in response to special
  situations where orthodox methods are inadequate
  
• prehistoric monuments and sites , where there is
  no written record
• physical remains are too scanty or disturbed
• the written record too fragmentary to furnish a
  safe basis for preservation, restoration, or
  reconstruction.
• In an effort to span more safely the voids left
  by such missing archival or archaeological data,
  as well as to check out the assumptions of
  previous scholars new specialists are developing
  new routines for themselves and their students

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THE DANISH EXPERIMENT

• Director
• HansOle Hansen
• Prehistorian of the Archaeological Research
  Center at Lejre, Denmark
• To investigation the Iron Age culture of Denmark
• Working with selected village sites dating from
  about 200 B.C.

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Focus on

• 1?The first consisted in new methods of
  interpreting the results of orthodox
  archaeological investigations
• Can the so-called flint scraper really scrape
  skins?
• Do the clay structures normally interpreted as
  meat-smoking ovens really smoke meat?
• or the so-called pottery kilns really fire
  pottery?
• By erecting posts in the pattern of postholes, do
  you get an accurate three-dimensional replica of
  the Iron Age house?
• And if so, can you live in it?

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Focus on

• 2?The second in trying to determine prehistoric
  ways of life from these archaeofacts.
• given the known type of corn grown in the
  Neolithic period, and the known implements of
  tillage, harvesting, and milling, what would the
  yield per acre be?
• given the looms attested by archaeology, how many
  
• worker-hours would be needed to produce the
  Iron Age garments actually found in Danish peat
  bogs?
• How would they be worn?
• How warm would they be?

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Operating method

• erected six "Iron Age" huts, following the ground
  plans of excavated huts
• putting adz-hewn timbers in postholes
• erecting wattle-and-daub walls and thatched roofs
  of varying pitches
• to live in these huts for periods in summer and
  winter

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Finding

• Problems of huts
• The smoke hole over the centered fire pit did not
  draw out the smoke as anticipated
• when rain fell. it extinguished the fire.
• When the smoke vent was shifted to the downwind
  gable end, it worked.

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Finding

• Replicas
• tools and clothing were excavated on the site
• processes like the tanning of leather and the
  dyeing and weaving of fabrics.
• in fields plowed with replicas of plows found in
  the peat hogs.
• Pot making was carried on to test assumptions
  about clays, kiln design, firing temperatures.

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contribution to interpretive methodology

• raise the level of prehistory and further the
  education of young historians
• the experiments have attracted such widespread
  popular interest

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THE PLIMOTH PLANTATION EXPERIMENT

• Location Puritan village of Plimoth Plantation
  near Plymouth, Massachusetts
• Purpose of the project
• to understand the way of life in the colony's
  first ten years after 1627.

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Operating method

• To reconstruct Puritan village of Plimoth
  Plantation
• The young student-docents actually live in the
  replicated cabins, carrying on their daily chores

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Operating method

• Replicate the domestic life-style of what was
  essentially a late-medieval community.
• The houses are as accurate as modern research can
  make them

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operating at two levels

• 1. Laying the basis for the complete
  documentation of the social and cultural history
  of the colony

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• 2. Communicating this new knowledge to the public
  in the most accurate and informative possible
  fashion.
• According to former director, James Deetz,
  "the village is presented as a living community,
  where people perform the routine tasks involved
  in the life of the time."

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Compare

• Lejre is fundamentally a research facility aimed
  at enriching the training of archaeologists and
  anthropologists. It is only incidentally a site
  aimed at educating the general public .
• Plimoth Plantation, on the other hand, is
  primarily aimed at educating the general public
  only incidentally is it proving to be a valuable
  experience for young archaeologists and
  anthropologists

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SITE INTERPRETATION FOR THE PUBLIC

• The most effective way to teach history to the
  general public is by interpreting historical
  incidents in terms of the actual scenes in which
  they occurred.
• It is easy to
• enrich the visitor's understanding of the
  monument
• imprinting historical information on the
  visitor's memory.

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Medium between monument and public

• 1. Guided tours led by trained docents
• 2. Equipping the visitor with individual
  headphone sets and taped lectures covering a
  predetermined route through the monument
• 3. son-et-lumiere performance for a massed
  audience
• 4. Documentary films on the monument
• 5. Live demonstrations of relevant activities
• 6. Guidebooks which visitors can consult as they
  move in and around the site.

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Medium between monument and public-- docents

• In Europe
• The visiting public sees only guards or
  custodians, never docents
• Licensed professional guides must be hired by
  the individual tourist
• In the United States
• Interpretation is much more active, the most
  usual form being that of docents leading small
  groups on guided tours through the monument.
• Theft is a serious problem

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Docents requirement

• (1) the educational program of the institution
  itself
• (2) the training of the decent in the historical
  background and architectural significance of the
  building
• (3) the personality of the decent.

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conclusion

• One of the best of all ways to interpret the
  historic building is to re-create the activities
  and processes which it was originally designed to
  facilitate or expedite.
• Enriching the training of archaeologists and
  anthropologists .
• Educating the general public .

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Shelburne Museum

• an 1800s drugstore, completely intact
• including an adjoining workshop with the kilns
  and retorts in which the druggist distilled many
  of his portions.
• display of nineteenth century bottles, jars, and
  boxes in which the pharmacopoeia of the times was
  packaged.

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Shelburne Museum
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Old sturbridge village

• Asa Knight general store represents an innovative
  museological enterprise

• The building is dating from before 1837

• Operating on a newly formulated assumption--
  that the customers would have been shopping for
  brand-new merchandise, not century-and-a-half-old
  antiques .

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Old sturbridge village

• Sturbridge curators decided to stock this store
  with bright and shiny facsimiles .
• The object of such efforts at verisimilitude is
  to make as vivid as possible to all visitors

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Old sturbridge village