Archaeoacoustics

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.'

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 (ISGMA) 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 acoustic 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:

[A] trowel, like any flat plate, must vibrate in response to sound: thus, drawn over the wet surface by the singing plasterer, it must emboss a gramophone-type recording of his song in the plaster. Once the surface is dry, it may be played back.

—Jones, 1982

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.

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 Benford'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 English.
• Rudy Rucker's 1981 short story "Buzz" includes a small section of audio recovered from ancient Egyptian pottery.
• A 2000 episode of The X-Files, "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 Lazarus from the dead.
• In the 1996 game Amber: Journeys Beyond, this phenomenon is referred to as "stone tape theory" and a key part of the game's plot.
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation used this in 2005 episode Committed, where an inmate's conversation is partially recorded on a clay jar.
• In the first season episode of Fringe entitled "The Road Not Taken", an electron microscope is used to reproduce sounds captured on a partially melted window.

See also

• Music archaeology
• Ancient music
• Prehistoric music
• Ernst Chladni
• Phonautograph