Putting the Soul into Archaeology - Integrating Interpretation into Practice

Abstract

This article introduces a special volume of Advances in Archaeological Practice dedicated to the interpretation and presentation of archaeology. It provides an overview of several essays that came out of a session at the European Association of Archaeology Conference in 2017, which focused upon how interpretation can be implemented within daily practices of (cultural resource management) archaeology in a way that provides heritage value. We bring the arguments together into a call for a creative, interpretive archaeology that does not take compliance or academic publications as its end goal but will speak to a far wider range of audiences through the development and presentation of stories and narratives that truly engage and inspire people. We argue that this can be achieved by implementing emotion design methods that dynamically differentiate between information, message, emotion, and media, by working closely together with creatives, interpretive experts, communities, and partners and, ultimately, by integrating interpretation firmly at the core of planning processes, archaeological workflows, and our daily practices.