Now however, archeologists aren’t just using their eyes to find the secrets hidden in our landscapes.
They’re using their ears – to listen to the ‘soundscapes’ of history.
Acoustic time travel
A new acoustic tool has been developed by researchers that interprets the sound of an archaeological landscape.
It’s now being used to suggest what people might have heard at political and sacred historical sites to flesh out our understanding of bygone cultures.
“People don’t live in a vacuum and we have to look at all aspects of the lived experience,” says Kristy Primeau, who’s doing her archeology PhD at the University of Albany. “Sound is one way in which we hope to understand a multifaceted experience of the people that lived in these ‘places.’”
“There is more to the experience of the landscape than just being present there.”
How it works
Primeau worked with the University of Buffalo‘s David Witt while at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
He first developed a spreadsheet that calculates the impact of sound on the physical environment, modelling the effect of distance and intervening features.
The researchers then expanded this point-to-point data into a computer program that models sound over an entire landscape.
This 3D tool has already explored the Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, a major cultural centre for ancestral Pueblo people, which reached its high point around CE 1040.
Musical findings
The archaeologists’ work suggests that certain features were located to allow inhabitants to share culturally relevant sounds like a raised voice to alert in times of danger.
They’ve also discovered how the sound of musical instruments would be used in different parts of the canyon, including the conch shell trumpet.
“Individuals at [four different points] would have heard a conch shell trumpet blown on the platform found at Pueblo Bonito,” they say in their findings.
“Events at the mound were not just meant to be experienced in front of Pueblo Bonito, but throughout Downtown Chaco.”
The musical time travelling tool is just the first step into an innovative area of research, say the scientists.
Forget seeing the future, perhaps it’s even cooler to be able to hear the past.
Source
https://www.thememo.com
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