Archaeoacoustics
Encyclopedia
Archaeoacoustics is the use of acoustical study as a methodological approach within archaeology. This may for example involve the study of the acoustics of archaeological sites, or the study of the acoustics of archaeological artefacts. Archaeology has often focused on the visual and on physical objects, although the past was of course not silent. Since many cultures explored through archaeology were focused on the oral and therefore the aural, it is becoming increasingly recognised that studying the sonic nature of parts of archaeology can enhance our understanding. This is an interdisciplinary field which includes areas such as archaeology, ethnomusicology, acoustics and digital modelling, and that is a part of the wider field of Music Archaeology
. There is particular interest in Prehistoric Music
.
A book Archaeoacoustics, edited by archaeologists Professor Chris Scarre of Durham University, and Dr. Graeme Lawson of the MacDonald Institute in Cambridge, was the first book to study this field in depth. It focuses on the role of sound in human behaviour, from earliest times up to the development of mechanical detection and recording devices in the 19th century. Recent calls for an `archaeology of the senses' have served as a timely, even overdue reminder that the past which we experience - and which others have experienced before us - is multisensory, drawing not only upon the primary field of vision, but also on touch, smell and hearing. Megalithic tombs, Palaeolithic painted caves, Romanesque churches and prehistoric rock shelters all present specific sound qualities which offer clues as to how they may have been designed and used. Voices resonate, external noises are subdued or eliminated, and a special aural dimension is accessed which complements the evidence of our other senses. This book, arising from a conference held at the McDonald Institute in 2003, brings together archaeologists and specialists in early musical instruments and acoustics in an attempt to unlock some of the meaning latent in the acoustics of such early structures and spaces. It has been described as 'essential reading for all who are concerned to seek a broader understanding of human sensory experience from prehistory up to historical times.'
) includes archaeoacoustical work. It is a pool of researchers devoted to the field of music archaeology. The study group is hosted at the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute Berlin (DAI, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Orient-Abteilung) and the Department for Ethnomusicology at the Ethnological Museum Berlin (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, SMB SPK, Abteilung Musikethnologie, Medien-Technik und Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv). It comprises research methods of musicological and anthropological disciplines, such as archaeology, organology, acoustics, music iconology, philology, ethnohistory, and ethnomusicology. The International Council for Traditional Music Study Group for Music Archaeology also has relevant information on its website. The Acoustics and Music of British Prehistory Research Network was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, led by Rupert Till and Chris Scarre, as well as Professor Jian Kang of Sheffield University's Department of Architecture. It has a list of researchers working in the field, and links to many other relevant sites. An archaeoacoustics e-mail list also discusses the subject since 2002 and was set up as a result of the First Pan-American/Iberian Meeting on Acoustics by Victor Reijs.
phenomena encoded in ancient artifacts. For instance, the idea that a pot or vase could be "read" like a gramophone record
or phonograph cylinder
for messages from the past, sounds encoded into the turning clay as the pot was thrown. There is little evidence to support such ideas, and there are few publications claiming that this is the case. In comparison the more contemporary approach to the field now has many publications and a growing significance. This earlier approach was first raised in the 6 February 1969 issue of New Scientist
magazine, where it was discussed in David E. H. Jones
's light-hearted "Daedalus
" column. He wrote:
Jones subsequently received a letter from one Richard G. Woodbridge III who claimed to have already been working on the idea and said that he had sent a paper on the subject to the journal Nature
. The paper never appeared in Nature, but the August 1969 edition of the journal Proceedings of the IEEE
printed a letter from Woodbridge entitled "Acoustic Recordings from Antiquity". In this communication, the author stated that he wished to call attention to the potential of what he called "Acoustic Archaeology" and to record some early experiments in the field. He then described his experiments with making clay pots and oil paintings from which sound could then be replayed, using a conventional record player cartridge connected directly to a set of headphones. He claimed to have extracted the hum of the potter's wheel from the grooves of a pot, and the word "blue" from an analysis of patch of blue color in a painting.
In 1993, archeology professor Paul Åström
and acoustics professor Mendel Kleiner performed similar experiments in Gothenburg
, and reported that they could recover some sounds.
An episode of Mythbusters
explored the idea; Episode 62: Killer Cable Snaps, Pottery Record found that while some generic acoustic phenomena can be found on pottery, it is unlikely that any discernible sounds (like someone talking) could be recorded on the pots unless the ancient peoples had the technical knowledge to deliberately put the sounds on the artifacts.
Music archaeology
Music Archaeology is an interdisciplinary field that mixes musicology and Archaeology. As it includes music from numerous cultures, it is often seen as being a part of ethnomusicology, and indeed a study group looking into music archaeology first emerged from ethnomusicological group the ICTM, not...
. There is particular interest in Prehistoric Music
Prehistoric music
Prehistoric music is a term in the history of music for all music produced in preliterate cultures , beginning somewhere in very late geological history...
.
A book Archaeoacoustics, edited by archaeologists Professor Chris Scarre of Durham University, and Dr. Graeme Lawson of the MacDonald Institute in Cambridge, was the first book to study this field in depth. It focuses on the role of sound in human behaviour, from earliest times up to the development of mechanical detection and recording devices in the 19th century. Recent calls for an `archaeology of the senses' have served as a timely, even overdue reminder that the past which we experience - and which others have experienced before us - is multisensory, drawing not only upon the primary field of vision, but also on touch, smell and hearing. Megalithic tombs, Palaeolithic painted caves, Romanesque churches and prehistoric rock shelters all present specific sound qualities which offer clues as to how they may have been designed and used. Voices resonate, external noises are subdued or eliminated, and a special aural dimension is accessed which complements the evidence of our other senses. This book, arising from a conference held at the McDonald Institute in 2003, brings together archaeologists and specialists in early musical instruments and acoustics in an attempt to unlock some of the meaning latent in the acoustics of such early structures and spaces. It has been described as 'essential reading for all who are concerned to seek a broader understanding of human sensory experience from prehistory up to historical times.'
Notable Work
Dr. Aaron Watson of Monumental undertook groundbreaking work on the acoustics of numerous archaeological sites, including that of Stonehenge. He also investigated numerous chamber tombs and other stone circles. Maverick archaeologist Paul Devereux's work has looked at ringing rocks, Avebury and various other subjects, and his book Stone Age Soundtracks provides a wide overview. Dr. Ian Cross of Cambridge University has explored Lithoacoustics, the use of stones as musical instruments. Dr. Rupert Till of Huddersfield University has also explored Stonehenge's acoustics, along with Dr. Bruno Fazenda of Salford University. A website called Sounds of Stonehenge discusses their work. A book called The Sounds of Stonehenge, has a number of chapters approaching the sonic history of the site. Iegor Reznikoff and Michel Dauvois have studied the prehistoric painted caves of France, and found links between the artworks' positioning and acoustic effects. Steven Waller has also studied the links between rock art and sound.Networks
The International Study Group on Music Archaeology (ISGMAInternational Study Group on Music Archaeology
The International Study Group on Music Archaeology is a study group of researchers who carry out research in the field of Music Archaeology....
) includes archaeoacoustical work. It is a pool of researchers devoted to the field of music archaeology. The study group is hosted at the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute Berlin (DAI, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Orient-Abteilung) and the Department for Ethnomusicology at the Ethnological Museum Berlin (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, SMB SPK, Abteilung Musikethnologie, Medien-Technik und Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv). It comprises research methods of musicological and anthropological disciplines, such as archaeology, organology, acoustics, music iconology, philology, ethnohistory, and ethnomusicology. The International Council for Traditional Music Study Group for Music Archaeology also has relevant information on its website. The Acoustics and Music of British Prehistory Research Network was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, led by Rupert Till and Chris Scarre, as well as Professor Jian Kang of Sheffield University's Department of Architecture. It has a list of researchers working in the field, and links to many other relevant sites. An archaeoacoustics e-mail list also discusses the subject since 2002 and was set up as a result of the First Pan-American/Iberian Meeting on Acoustics by Victor Reijs.
Past Interpretations
An early interpretation of the idea of archaeoacoustics was that it explored acousticAcoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...
phenomena encoded in ancient artifacts. For instance, the idea that a pot or vase could be "read" like a gramophone record
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
or phonograph cylinder
Phonograph cylinder
Phonograph cylinders were the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity , these cylinder shaped objects had an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which could be reproduced when the cylinder was...
for messages from the past, sounds encoded into the turning clay as the pot was thrown. There is little evidence to support such ideas, and there are few publications claiming that this is the case. In comparison the more contemporary approach to the field now has many publications and a growing significance. This earlier approach was first raised in the 6 February 1969 issue of New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
magazine, where it was discussed in David E. H. Jones
David E. H. Jones
David E. H. Jones is best known as Daedalus, the fictional inventor for DREADCO. Jones' columns as Daedalus were published weekly in the New Scientist starting in the mid-sixties. He then moved on to the journal Nature, and continued to publish for many years. He published two books with columns...
's light-hearted "Daedalus
Daedalus (Ariadne)
Daedalus is a fictional inventor created by David E. H. Jones for his Ariadne column in the New Scientist and The Guardian, and which is currently featured in Nature.Daedalus's imaginary inventions are solidly grounded in science —...
" column. He wrote:
Jones subsequently received a letter from one Richard G. Woodbridge III who claimed to have already been working on the idea and said that he had sent a paper on the subject to the journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
. The paper never appeared in Nature, but the August 1969 edition of the journal Proceedings of the IEEE
Proceedings of the IEEE
The Proceedings of the IEEE is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers...
printed a letter from Woodbridge entitled "Acoustic Recordings from Antiquity". In this communication, the author stated that he wished to call attention to the potential of what he called "Acoustic Archaeology" and to record some early experiments in the field. He then described his experiments with making clay pots and oil paintings from which sound could then be replayed, using a conventional record player cartridge connected directly to a set of headphones. He claimed to have extracted the hum of the potter's wheel from the grooves of a pot, and the word "blue" from an analysis of patch of blue color in a painting.
In 1993, archeology professor Paul Åström
Paul Åström
Paul Åström was a Swedish archaeologist and classical scholar. He is mostly known for his achievements in the prehistoric archaeology of Cyprus.-Biography:...
and acoustics professor Mendel Kleiner performed similar experiments in Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
, and reported that they could recover some sounds.
An episode of Mythbusters
MythBusters
MythBusters is a science entertainment TV program created and produced by Beyond Television Productions for the Discovery Channel. The series is screened by numerous international broadcasters, including Discovery Channel Australia, Discovery Channel Latin America, Discovery Channel Canada, Quest...
explored the idea; Episode 62: Killer Cable Snaps, Pottery Record found that while some generic acoustic phenomena can be found on pottery, it is unlikely that any discernible sounds (like someone talking) could be recorded on the pots unless the ancient peoples had the technical knowledge to deliberately put the sounds on the artifacts.
In popular culture
- An episode of Mysteryquest on History called Stonehenge featured Rupert Till and Bruno Fazenda conducting acoustic tests at Stonehenge and at the Maryhill Monument, a full-sized replica of Stonehenge in the USA.
- Gregory BenfordGregory BenfordGregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine...
's 1979 short story "Time Shards" concerns a researcher who recovers thousand-year-old sound from a piece of pottery thrown on a wheel and inscribed with a fine wire as it spun. The sound is then analyzed to reveal conversations between the potter and his assistant in Middle EnglishMiddle EnglishMiddle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
. - Rudy RuckerRudy RuckerRudolf von Bitter Rucker is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and philosopher, and is one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known for the novels in the Ware Tetralogy, the first two of...
's 1981 short story "Buzz" includes a small section of audio recovered from ancient Egyptian pottery. - A 2000 episode of The X-FilesThe X-FilesThe X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
, "Hollywood A.D.", features "The Lazarus Bowl", a mythical piece of pottery reputed to have recorded on it the words that Jesus Christ spoke when he raised LazarusLazarus of BethanyLazarus of Bethany, also known as Saint Lazarus or Lazarus of the Four Days, is the subject of a prominent miracle attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus restores him to life four days after his death...
from the dead. - In the 1996 game Amber: Journeys BeyondAMBER: Journeys BeyondAMBER: Journeys Beyond is an American computer game released in 1996 for Apple Macintosh computers and Windows 95. It is the only game produced by Hue Forest Entertainment, founded by Frank and Susan Wimmer.- Gameplay :...
, this phenomenon is referred to as "stone tape theory" and a key part of the game's plot. - CSI: Crime Scene InvestigationCSI: Crime Scene InvestigationCSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
used this in 2005 episode Committed, where an inmate's conversation is partially recorded on a clay jar. - In the first season episode of FringeFringe (TV series)Fringe is an American science fiction television series created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The series follows a Federal Bureau of Investigation "Fringe Division" team based in Boston, Massachusetts under the supervision of Homeland Security...
entitled "The Road Not Taken", an electron microscope is used to reproduce sounds captured on a partially melted window.
See also
- Music ArchaeologyMusic archaeologyMusic Archaeology is an interdisciplinary field that mixes musicology and Archaeology. As it includes music from numerous cultures, it is often seen as being a part of ethnomusicology, and indeed a study group looking into music archaeology first emerged from ethnomusicological group the ICTM, not...
- Ancient musicAncient musicAncient music is music that developed in literate cultures, replacing prehistoric music.Ancient music refers to the various musical systems that were developed across various geographical regions such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, India, China, Greece and Rome. Ancient music is designated by the...
- Prehistoric MusicPrehistoric musicPrehistoric music is a term in the history of music for all music produced in preliterate cultures , beginning somewhere in very late geological history...
- Ernst ChladniErnst ChladniErnst Florens Friedrich Chladni was a German physicist and musician. His important works include research on vibrating plates and the calculation of the speed of sound for different gases. For this some call him the "Father of Acoustics"...
- PhonautographPhonautographThe phonautograph is the earliest known device for recording sound. Previously, tracings had been obtained of the sound-producing vibratory motions of tuning forks and other objects by physical contact with them, but not of actual sound waves as they propagated through air or other media. Invented...