Archaeology Magazine - July/August 2011 - 16

FROM THE TRENCHES
helped consolidate the priests’ power as a newly minted elite. olar will present results from her ongoing work later this year, but she says that patterns are deﬁnitely emerging in terms of how people perceive sound in Chavín’s underground galleries. Some architectural features seem to ﬁlter noises in certain ways, and the team is close to being able to map the way that design and construction favors certain frequencies. Their ultimate goal is to create an acoustic model of the space, which would make it possible to digitally reconstruct the eﬀect of any sound at any location, heard from any other. That way anyone anywhere could “hear” and experiment with Chavín’s acoustics, and they would be preserved forever. Recording shell trumpets being played in Chavín’s tunnels will allow the researchers to Physical conservation is make an accurate acoustic model of the site. a priority for archaeologists, since many of the galleries ging ceiling, can have a drastic eﬀect have bulging, waterlogged walls. Rick on certain frequencies. Even if a site says they hope to put the original does have unusual acoustics, were three-mile drainage system back into they put to use, and if so, how? The service starting this summer. In the most important and most diﬃcult meantime, they’re trying to ﬁgure out question to answer is whether the whether the galleries were modiﬁed sound properties had any cultural over time to enhance or preserve their signiﬁcance. acoustics, which could oﬀer clues to What we can know for certain is whether the eﬀects were intentional that sound has power, and not just in or not. a concert hall. A 2008 UCLA study Kolar says she sometimes brings found that listening to a resonant friends down into the galleries just frequency of 110 hertz, in the range to experience the sound of the conch of a shell trumpet or a low male voice, trumpets for themselves. “It’s always temporarily shifted volunteers’ brain amazing what eﬀects you get, and activity from the logic processing how that surprises people,” she says. left side to the emotional right side. Some people report feeling ill at ease, Chavín’s religious leaders could have even nauseated, as the low-frequency used unearthly noises, along with tones vibrate through their bodies psychoactive drugs, strange lights, in the dimness. Kolar has felt this and images, to convince others they herself, but also has felt “very relaxed, held the power of gods, or could very mellowed out” after hours of become gods themselves. To take hearing the trumpets playing. “You it a step further, rituals of sensory deﬁnitely feel like you’re in a diﬀerent overload and coercion may have world.” —Julian Smith
ARCHAEOLOGY • July/August 2011

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Archaeology Magazine - July/August 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - July/August 2011