Trying to hear what prehistoric hunter-gatherers heard by examining rock art site acoustics
Recordings, Site Shpinitskaya Art Custom The Background Olhavanvuori Julia Photo Raft Rock By Built For Used In Summertime
‘What monstrous place is this’, said Angel. ‘It hums’, said she. ‘Harken! — .
Thomas Hardy knew that the wind made Stonehenge sing. He described hearing reverberations within the monument. In 2014, researchers from the Royal College of Art found that each of the small ‘blue stones’ there produces a unique musical tone when struck.
Has sound always played a central role in rituals addressing the supernatural?
Was the great structure on the Salisbury Plain a giant musical amplifier?
Although bone leather and wooden instruments have been unearthed at ancient sites, they are usually too badly damaged to provide answers to such questions As the music of the Neolithic and Bronze ages remains lost to us, we can only speculate as to how it sounded.
When ‘Achill-henge’ was built without planning permission from Mayo County Council in 2011, some of its defenders argued that the concrete structure, erected in 72 hours, might be retained for research into ancient music.
How did Stone Age people react on hearing echoes? Did they think that an alter-ego spirit was answering their prayers? Research by archaeologists from University of Helsinki suggests that this might have been the case.
Ancient hunter-gatherers painted pictures of boats deer and people on vertical granite cliffs rising directly from waters in the Finnish Lake District. Artwork, some of it 7,000 years old, has survived. The rock surfaces at the sites are smooth, and echoes can be heard by people approaching in boats, or on foot when a lake is frozen over.
Kalliomaalausten äärellä on usein outo kaiku, sanoo Riitta Rainio. Suomen ensimmäinen ääniarkeologi tutkii, miltä muinaiset paikat kuulostavat. #arkeologia #historia @HYhumtdk @yliopistolehti https://t.co/np2GqqKqeH
— University of Helsinki (@helsinkiuni) April 6, 2021
The stillness in the darkness of the Nordic winter is unforgettable; sound carries much further in the cool air than it does at our latitudes. I remember hearing husky dogs bark several kilometres away across gleaming frozen lakes under the spectacular starry skies of Swedish Lapland. Music must surely have played a role in rituals there long ago.
Using a purpose-built raft in summer when the lakes were ice-free, the Helsinki team carried out acoustic tests at 37 ancient art locations.
They found that the echoes coming from the painted surfaces were particularly clear and distinct. The echoes, if any, from less smooth lakeshore rocks or sandy terrain, were muffled. The team concluded that the sites for paintings had not been selected randomly. They must have been chosen for dialogue with the proposed art-works.
Ocean waves bounce off vertical sea-walls and travel backwards. Sound waves, likewise, are reflected from smooth surfaces. Ancient people, knowing nothing of the physics of sound, may have concluded that echoes are magical.
"As these reflections appeared to emanate from invisible sources behind the paintings, the audio and visual images overlapped into one multisensory experience," the researchers claim.
"So, people heard the painted elks talking and the human figures responding in a voice that resembled their own," says Riitta Rainio, lead author of a paper just published. They thought, perhaps, that the deer and humans, depicted in the wall-paintings, were answering them.
"Although the sounds and music of prehistoric people are beyond our reach, the study shows that the physical environment actively participated in their activities."
Unknown to him, there was a henge under Hardy’s home.