I'd argue that 1-based indexing is the "natural interpretation". Mathematics is inherently 1-based, and it isn't surprising that languages designed to do mathematics like R, Matlab, Mathematica, Julia all do 1-based arrays because that makes modeling paper mathematics in programs easier.
Mathematics as a discipline predates the invention of the digit zero. The concept sure, but the notation and building positional representations around it is around 2000 years old.
