Exploring Ancient Sounds and Places

Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Archaeoacoustics

Margarita Díaz-Andreu, Neemias Santos da Rosa

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9798888571781
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: History of Art
• Index: Social Sciences

Archaeoacoustics, the study of sound in the past, is increasingly attracting attention. Although some work, particularly in musical archaeology, had been conducted previously, the field received a significant boost when the term itself was coined by Scarre and Lawson in their 2006 volume of that name, which brought together two major distinct strands: archaeomusicology and the acoustics of archaeological spaces. Since 2006, the number of publications has steadily been growing, yet the field remains in its infancy. This is partly due to the complexity inherent in the analysis of sound, which requires multidisciplinary collaboration across various disciplines. This complexity is reflected in the approaches followed and the contributors from diverse academic fields, including not only archaeology but also anthropology, architecture, classics, history, art history, and sound engineering. The aim is to provide an overview of a selection of the different topics covered by the field of archaeoacoustics. Contributors aspire to advancing the field through innovative approaches, including those stemming from psychology, a field not commonly associated with archaeology. Additionally, the book seeks to expand the field by developing a number of new ideas based on novel case studies. It presents some of the results derived from major research projects, such as the ERC funded Artsoundscapes and the Soundspace projects led by Díaz-Andreu and Knighton, respectively. The book will cover a wide range of topics, including a synthetic history of research provided in the introduction, theories about the origins of music in early humans, experimental archaeomusicology, approaches from the fields of neuroacoustics and psychoacoustics, experimental studies of portable and fixed lithophones and other musical instruments, explorations of soundscapes, representations of sound in early medieval frescoes, late medieval urbanscapes, and post-medieval proxemics. Case studies are located in America, Asia, and Europe.

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• 1. Exploring ancient sounds and places: The challenges of hearing intangible heritage in the past
• 2. The role of listening in the prehistorical emergence of speech and song: A precursor to becoming human?
• 3. Archoustemology and the Aurignacian: Ancient ways of knowing through sound
• 4. The sounds are audible: Fabricating ancient instruments – what more can we learn?
• 5. Methodologies to explore the cognitive effects of music in rituals: Implications for studying ancient ritual activities
• 6. Methods for psychoacoustic and emotional evaluation of archaeological soundscapes with auralisation
• 7. Ethnohistorical sources in archaeoacoustics research: A case study from South-Central California
• 8. Early rock music: Methodology to identify and analyse portable lithophones. An example from Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in the San Luis Valley, Colorado, US
• 9. Preliminary insights into the archaeoacoustics of cup-marked sounding rocks in the north area of the Gredos mountain chain, Spain
• 10. The rock art soundscapes of the Karakol valley (Republic of Altai, Russia): An archaeoacoustic study of a unique landscape
• 11. Sound imagery in medieval Serbian frescoes
• 12. Acoustic space then and now: Listening to history
• 13. Estimation of speech intelligibility in the past: Learning from Benjamin Franklin’s experiment