WEBVTT - Sonic Illusions 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.279 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:15.000 dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to All your Mind. 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.560 My name is Robert Lamb and Julie Douglas. And in 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:20.239 this episode we're talking about sound, which is which is 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:24.480 good because this podcast is is sonic by its very nature. 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.720 That's right. It is a sound that is traveling into 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.440 your holes and hopefully it's pleasant. But we wanted to 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:35.320 talk about sound more as an aspect of art and 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:40.000 spirituality and and and even a sound escape that exists 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:44.160 within nature and the ways in which humans have um 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.960 interacted with us. Yeah, it's a it's a fascinating topic 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:49.720 and a lot of it really just gets down to 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:54.600 the heart of how do we interact with our world? Uh, 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:57.640 what is our sense experience of the world, and what 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:00.640 is our our our listening ex into the world. How 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.400 do we take in the soundscape around us? How do 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:06.240 we deal with artificial soundscapes. We live in a world 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:11.480 of just over overpowering access to soundscapes. You can go 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.440 online and you can find just about anything in the 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.920 natural or unnatural world to listen to and stream it 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.440 right into your head. Well, and then there's just environmental 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.080 sounds around us, um and you had mentioned this earlier. 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.760 We really take for granted the fact that we can 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:30.480 manipulate sound around us so easily. Oh yeah, And I 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:33.600 mean any given structure, any kind of artificial creation that 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:36.560 we've made, or any manipulation of a natural environment, and 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:39.760 you know, we're adjusting the way that we hear the world. 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.920 You grow some hedges, great, you've you've just recreated the 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:47.120 sonic experience of your environment. You build a house, same thing, 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.200 you build a cathedral, same thing. Yeah, these are more 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.840 like analog examples of the sort of technology that we 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.559 have at our disposal today. But what if you were 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:02.800 ancient man, ancient human in back in the day and 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:08.200 you had only the your surroundings to really play with sound, 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.359 and you have some instruments, okay, but you had your 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:13.720 hands to clap with, and you had things to bounce 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:17.639 that sound off of. And that's where something like caves 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:22.800 become incredibly interesting. Yes, yeah, I mean especially and we 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.360 were just talking about how the environment outside of our 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.400 office space is essentially an artificial canyon, and then there's 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.000 an artificial river of roaring traffic and all of this 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:34.560 this stuff, and it's it's just easy to to to 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:36.720 take all of it for granted, and just to to 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.560 overlook the manipulation of sound that's going on. Yeah, but 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.360 imagine yourself in a time where you have just this 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.520 this natural landscape and the soundscape that exists on top 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.239 of it, and then you encounter this cave. What happens 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.400 when you encounter this cave, assuming nothing jumps out of 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.079 it and eats you. I mean, just the censory of 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:58.800 experience of a cave is overwhelming. I mean, we I 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.200 feel like today we will realize that in terms of 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:06.120 our site, in terms of of the the tightness of 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.160 the space. I mean, it's still the stuff of horror 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:12.000 movie and uh yeah, but but but just think about 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:16.120 it also from the point of view of sound. Now, 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.960 this is something that really arrested the imagination of Esther 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.880 ingle Arcle writing for I oh nine, And she talks 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.080 about the novel A Passage to India by Ian Forster. 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.440 And in this novel there's something called the Malabar Caves, 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:36.280 and she says they're deep, and they're complicated, and any 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.520 noise made inside of them, from the scrape of a 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.080 match to the squeak of a boot heel, comes back 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:46.120 as thunderous noise, the sound of the caves drive two 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:50.480 British women temporarily mad. And this, this whole idea really 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:58.200 captured her imagination. And so she says, to her internal disappointment, Um, 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:00.640 these caves, which are based on the b of our caves, 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.240 do not have the power to drive people into altered 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:06.480 states of mind with sound. But she says, hey does 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.120 turn out that there are actually some caves around the 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:12.040 world that do. And before you think, oh, well, that's 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.320 just some sort of crazy fictional creation, though I mean 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.160 it did serve a literary point. She points us out 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.960 in her article that uh, it's it's really about the 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.839 the the coming revolution in India, the gap between the 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:28.640 understanding of uh, the Indians and the British. So it's 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.440 it works. It's not just the forester making stuff up 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.120 and putting it in the book. No, it's a nice 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.360 narrative technique to talk about the unknown. But but then 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:38.320 if you actually set off to find that cave, you 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.080 would be somewhe disappoint You would be very disappointed. But 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:46.240 if you are an archo acoustic researcher, you probably would 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.240 know of several caves. But in order to get to 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:51.960 those caves, we have to talk about what archo acoustics 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:54.279 is in the first place. Yes, on a very simple level, 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:58.080 this is just the study of sound in an archaeological context. 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:02.360 Um is simple as is, here's an archaeological site. We 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:04.640 put a lot of effort into what does it look like, 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.440 what did it look like back in the day, reconstructing it, 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.159 reading any signs and symbols on it, and figuring out 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:14.440 what what things were meant to symbolize. But then when 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.039 you get into archaeo acoustics, it's also how did this 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.440 place sound? What was the sound experience of this space? 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:22.880 And when you start talking about the sound experience of 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:24.960 of of a space, I realized that can sound a 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:29.000 little bit new ag and hippie dippy, And just try 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.040 and eject that from your mind as much as possible, because, again, 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:34.800 just to bore it down, the sound experience of a 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:39.120 space is vital. Sound is an important sensory experience and 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:42.159 I think it's it's obvious that it would be if 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.960 if not the primary driving factor in the creation of 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.040 of of these ancient sites. It certainly is a factor 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:51.520 in the experience of those sites. Yeah, so it definitely 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.279 is a relationship of the sensory world and the human 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:59.360 and that monument or that natural um area in which 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.440 the person is sitting in. But they also measure the 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:06.359 acoustic parameters of a place by use of electronic instrumentations, 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.440 So they are trying to figure out the physics of 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:13.000 sound here and how it's playing out. Now, some would 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:17.479 take issue with the field of argo acoustics. Yeah, I mean, 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.240 when you really get down to it, there's not a 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.840 lot of science to back it up. A lot of 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:24.960 this and not to say there there have there have 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:26.880 not been studies and they're there are not some some 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.400 fascinating findings, and we'll get into some of that, but 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:32.440 at heart, a lot of it breaks down to us 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.400 trying to put ourselves in the mindset and in the 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:41.840 sense experience of increasingly early humans. Um. And when we're 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:44.839 also when we're talking about the sounds that an environment makes, 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.600 that an official environment makes, or even an augmented one 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:52.640 such as a decorated cave, we're talking about percussion, We're 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.120 talking about the ringing of rocks, We're talking about echoes, 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:59.120 and we're even talking about wind water and heat expansion sounds. Uh, 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.960 any kind of sounds that consider a part of that environment. 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:07.520 But yeah, as I believe us researcher Stephen Waller points out, um, 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.520 and he's one of the primary researchers we're gonna talk 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.200 about here. UM, A lot of this is about considering 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.880 the physiological and mental effects of sound and how we 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.560 use and have used, and continue to use ritual to 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:24.200 generate altered mind states and aids visuary experience. And again, 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.800 today we have access to all of these soundscapes, artificial 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:30.360 and uh and natural. We have all you know, you 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:32.920 can put in any kind of ambient or high energy 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:36.960 album to to augment your headspace, but in earlier times 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:39.600 that wasn't an option. Yeah, and I think the main 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:44.120 issue with our cho acoustics is again, uh, the interpretations. 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:48.400 So yeah, you can hear various soundscapes in nature in 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.200 a cave, for instance, and there may be some symbolism 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.480 to accompany it. But I think that the um that 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.680 the thing that's being levied against arco acoustics is that 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:03.840 we are tern recognition machines. So just because we see 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.360 a correlation here doesn't necessarily mean that there is a causation. 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:12.040 In other words, that people were um manipulating sound intentionally 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:16.680 in these spaces for ceremonial purposes. For instance, now esther 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.200 Angle Arcis writes, although the idea is not proved or 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.360 even provable, I do like it. It indicates there is 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:27.840 a gulf between two mindsets, not separated by geographical distance, 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.960 but by time. Two people standing in the same spot 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:35.800 and experiencing the same phenomenon will perceive them completely differently. 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:39.880 For one person the experience is a hallucinatory moment bringing 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:43.160 together sound, vision, and religion, while the other will just 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.640 see some pictures without taking note of anything else. Yeah, 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:48.880 that that's well put. And it it reminds me of 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.880 Jerusalem Syndrome a bit which we've we've discussed in our 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.520 Standall Syndrome episode about the impact of art and and 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.120 also historical sites on the person and so much it 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:02.559 is subjective what information you're bringing into it, with your 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:06.880 own personal history, your mythological or religious interpretation of the world, 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.160 um and and certainly a lot of that is is 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:12.959 at play here. Yeah, And so it kind of boils 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:17.440 down to this. In archao acoustics, it could very well 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.320 be that there just happened to be a soundscape that 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.520 worked really well with symbolism. In ceremony, or it could 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.360 be that, uh, the culture at that time really was 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.360 trying to manipulate those areas and have it work with 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.520 their mindsets of how the world worked. So we're never 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.080 going to get to a definitive answer here. It definitely 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.000 is that the chicken or the egg argument. Yeah, and 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:43.120 I can see where it's a hard sell for someone 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.079 to to to at least interpret some of this, uh, 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.880 this effort as oh, well, they're saying that Stonehenge or 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:51.800 um you know, or or or this cave or that 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.920 cave exists primarily as an historic site because it changed 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.120 the way people heard sounds. Um. I can see where 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:00.840 that would be difficult. I would be like saying, well, 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.200 stone Hinge exists because people like the way it tasted. 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:05.120 You know, it's it. We're so we have such a 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.520 visual mindset anyway. But but when you create a what 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.840 is it ultimately a sacred site? I feel like any 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:17.320 way that that site augments your sensory experience would be 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.040 important to the people who made it and important to 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:24.959 study as well. Yeah. Yeah, And and again artificial buildings, uh, 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:30.080 artificial constructions, they change the environment. They change the micro environment. 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.560 As we've discussed in the previous podcasts, but also just 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.080 as in terms of sound, you walk into a cathedral, 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:39.560 you walk into a um, into into a Greek amphitheater, Uh, 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.320 the sound changes. Your sound experience of this space is 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.959 different than it would be had at an unaugmented portion 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.240 of the Earth. Well, and one thing too that I 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.520 didn't mention is that one of the criticisms love it 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:56.160 against archaeo acoustics is this bias that early humans were 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.600 not sophisticated enough to really understand that so sound sound 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.880 could be manipulated. So you could say, oh, yes, in 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:06.719 a Greek amphitheater, that's totally intentional, right, that someone might 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.480 take issue with it in a cave, Yeah, so that's 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.240 something to consider. Yeah, but but but then it also 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:14.800 kind of comes down to someone saying, well, early man 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:18.120 couldn't possibly appreciate the fact that the cave is changing 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:20.800 the way it sounds come out like that's that's ludicrous. 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.120 So so you know they're like, there're two sides. Indeed, 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.360 all right, let's take a quick break and when we 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:36.040 get back, we're going to talk about spread Pallory. All right, 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:40.880 we're back and we're headed to China. Yes, an ancient 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:45.880 Mayan sight with a ball court, which sounds really sporty 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.679 of them. Right. You sound like you're you're showing real 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:50.880 estate right now. I know, and I feel like it's 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.000 property too. And look, this is wellcore where there were 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:56.960 their wide outfits and play tennis. But in fact that 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:00.800 is not at all with this ball court was about No, no, 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.000 this uh, this whole site thousand years old and u 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:06.600 uh you have a quarter of this as you have 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:11.880 the pyramid, the kind of ziggarati ish Mayan pyramid that 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:14.839 I'll try to include a picture of this with the 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.079 landing page for this episode because you really have to 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.440 look at it to get into everything that we're talking 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:21.720 about here. But uh, you have this pyramid, you have 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:25.280 this ball court, and indeed they're not playing basketball here. 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.440 This is a life and death game that is that 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.920 is occurring. Yeah, just let's foreground this and the fact 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.800 that the Mayans were really big on sacrifice, and we 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:39.080 think of sacrifice as this terrible cultural thing, but if 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.920 you happen to live um during that time in the 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:47.080 mind culture, then it would be um, you would have 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.760 very high statue if you were someone who were who 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:52.200 was going to be sacrificed, your family would be held 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:57.160 in high esteem. So the culture was revolved around this idea. 0:12:57.240 --> 0:12:59.280 And so you have a ball court, which sounds like 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.400 a sporty thing, but in fact it's this this field 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.720 where the drama of life is being played out. And 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:11.920 it was first excavated in nineteen twenty by archaeologist Sylvani's Morley. 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:14.840 Um it's five hundred and forty one ft long and 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.920 two hundred and forty feet wide, and it is the 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:22.160 largest in Mesoamerica, with walls on two sides and small 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.800 temples at either end. And I also, I just want 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:26.720 to throw in that if anyone say, looking at this, 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.320 you knowit brutal sport, it's uh. I mean ultimately all 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.040 sports are just mock wars anyway, and maybe this is 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:37.440 just a little more honest sport. Yeah. The idea behind 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.280 this that I've seen is that, um, again, it's a 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.480 life and death game that was played in the person 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:48.240 who won, who actually offered his head to be executed. Again, 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:52.120 this is because uh, in this mindset, you know, it 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:56.120 would be a great honor to to sacrifice yourself. So UM, 0:13:56.320 --> 0:14:00.000 keep that in mind, because I want to go back 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:05.120 to the structure of this, the temples actually formed a 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:10.000 whispering gallery. The amplified sounds spoken within them, and you 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.480 can stand in this temple or by the temple side. Again, 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.079 you've got two walls on either side and then temples 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.520 on either side, and you can speak in a low 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.520 voice and you can be heard distinctly at the end 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:25.200 of the court five hundred feet away. And the idea, 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.320 at least according to David Loveman, who is one of 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:31.240 the researchers probing the acoustic properties of ancient sites, is 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:35.960 that um, the minds could create other sounds, not just whispering. 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.440 They could do a whooping bird flying from right to left, 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.600 and he said that the priests could also make sounds 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:46.240 that sounded like fierce animals like rattlesnakes and jaguars. Again, 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.720 this is spectacle, this is life and death, and it 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.560 would make sense that these whispering galleries would help to 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:57.080 sort of ratchet up the suspense. Yeah, and it's also 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.440 worth noting here just to really get down to what 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:02.480 the minds were doing with their buildings and how they 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:08.080 were manipulating perception. The pyramid temple um with its again, 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.600 with its step like sides. If you're viewing this um 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:13.720 and you're in you're viewing it in the starting in 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.800 the spring equinox uh time, when the day and night 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:19.440 are at equal lengths. You'll you can see a shadow 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.680 glide down the temple steps and over several days transform 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.000 into different shapes as it moves across the courtyard. And 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.280 most scholars believe that this, uh, this shadow represents the 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:33.920 feathered Mayan god called Culkin. So if they're manipulating shadow 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:36.440 and light, I don't think it's any great stretch to 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:40.520 imagine the manipulating sound as well. Yeah. And the fact 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:42.280 of the matter is too, is that this is all 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:48.440 sort of one big ceremonial celestial marker wrapped up in one, 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:52.400 as you say, with sound with light, And it would 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:54.080 make sense that this is probably one of the most 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:59.360 important areas in which life is playing out in Mayan culture. Yeah, 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:01.560 I mean, in a this is the center of their universe, 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:03.960 you know, it's the center of their culture. Uh. And 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.280 they have all of their their mythology wrapped up in 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.800 it and around it. So yeah, Now you can find 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.160 whispering galleries throughout the world. Grand Central Station in New 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.080 York is one an unintentional one. I believe, you know, 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.120 the arches help to create this sonic illusion. You can 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.160 whisper in one area and be heard another. Um, let 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.760 me see the Saint Paul's Cathedral in London and the 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.640 statuary hall in the US Capitol Building. And apparently when 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.200 I was doing this research, this is a sort of 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.560 a unique way for someone to propose marriage. Yeah, there 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:41.920 you go, using the sacred aspects of the site. However 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:48.000 unintentional too, to take part of a sacred ritual. Yeah, 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.360 it's kind of, you know, a romantic notion to know 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:55.280 that you're you're ask for marriage. I suppose is traveling 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:59.880 along in this very intimate way cross base in times 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.640 who beloved's ear? All right, Now we're gonna travel to uh, 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:08.159 far different structure, sure, in fact, a natural structure, and 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:11.600 that's the Liscow Caves. Uh. And these are of course 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:16.199 located in France. You'll recognize the pictures, uh, ancient ancient 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.880 illustrations of animals on the wall. Uh, you know, very 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:24.480 stereotypical cave paintings. Um. So really a John back in time, 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.480 far beyond the mirror a thousand years ago of the 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:32.159 mine example we were discussing, Yeah, Warner Harzog actually documented 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:36.320 them in his film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and in 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:41.040 it you see herds of rocks, bulls, and horses depicted 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:44.920 running along the walls. There's a sense of motion, and 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:49.680 that is important in terms of archaeo acoustics. Stephen Waller 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.600 of the research lab Rock Art Acoustics believes that the 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:56.640 echoes of ritual clapping outside the cave would have sounded 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:03.240 like hundreds of hoofs drumming on the ground. Own go, yeah, 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:05.800 He said that. He also points out that many different 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.520 ancient ancient cultures attributed thunder in the sky to hoofed 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:13.280 thunder gods. So in that sense, it makes perfect sense 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:17.000 that the reverberation within the caves would be interpreted as 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:21.440 thunder and inspired paintings of those same different hoofed entities 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.160 right there on the cave wall. Yeah. And what's really 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:26.600 cool about this is that it enhances the experience. Now 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:29.960 you're painting with sounds, right, You're not just depicting life, 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:34.240 You're you're using the acoustics to really ramp up the experience, 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.399 and especially if you're looking at it in a ceremonial sense. 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.919 And we've talked about how the rhythmic clapping is really 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.760 important in cultures. First of all, it's something that uh, 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.400 that will coordinate the synapsis for everybody, right, so that's 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:53.360 where the group inclusion thing to clap. The Second of all, 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:58.679 it's something that is um intrinsic to ceremonies. So if 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.200 you're trying to get everybody together and dance and song 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.360 and to tell stories, then clapping is really important. Everyone's 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.560 looping up signaps is firing at the same time, getting 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:10.560 in the same head zone. You know. In this I 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:12.960 can't help but be reminded of contemporary artists and in 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.399 a niche Kapoor, because all these you know, wonderful, often 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:20.040 a large scale sculptures, but there's a mirror piece, a 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.240 concave mirror at the High Museum or in Atlanta, and 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:25.240 you stand before it and you move around in front 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.640 of it, and of course the mirrors alter how you 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:31.919 appear and those around you appear. But it also plays 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:33.800 with sound and you can you can have one person 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:36.600 stand a little closer and a little person uh stand 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:39.840 a little further back from it, and uh it alters 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.159 the way you hear each other. So the idea of 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:46.000 creating art and sound visual art and sonic art all 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:47.960 wrapped up into one has been with us for a 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:50.800 long time, it would see. Yeah, especially if you consider 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:55.000 symbolic thought, and uh this this was actually brought to 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:59.720 light pretty recently that Homo sapiens are not the only 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:04.000 one ones who are capable of symbolic thought, and researchers 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.760 this year discovered as shell engraved with a geometric pattern 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:12.119 at h erectus site known as Tranil on the Indonesian 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.719 island of Java, and that dates to between five four 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.800 hundred thirty thousand years ago. I bring this up because 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:25.720 it becomes an important aspect of how we order the world. Okay, 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:29.440 we need symbols, symbols or the basis of language. So 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.680 if you have cave art, if you have sound acoustics 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:37.720 interplaying with that, then you also have this ability to 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.879 kind of take hold of abstract thought and actually change 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:44.720 behavior based on symbolism. And some would even argue that 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:49.840 symbolic thought has ushered in morality or codes of living. 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.240 So that's why I think it's so important for all 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.919 this stuff to be considered as being wrapped up as 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.320 sort of one thing and not necessarily teased out as 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:00.879 its own. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing ancient Aliens about this idea. 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.400 I mean it gets right down to the heart of 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:07.679 what humans are and what has allowed humans and considerably 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:11.919 could have allowed Neanderthal or Homorectus to ascend to the 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:16.960 heights that they have indeed, which would bring us to Stonehenge, 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:22.159 because there couldn't be, you know, anything more enigmatic wrapped 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:25.159 up in a mystery and then pierced with a tiny 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:28.600 plastic sword of confusion. Yeah, I think Stonehenge is that 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:30.760 what we did in our two episodes. Did we pierce 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:33.760 it with the tiny sort of confusion? So many swords 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.960 of confusion? Yeah, And I think that speaks to how 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.440 complex it is. Yeah. Yeah, I mean Stonehenge really resonates 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:44.040 with everyone because it is this, this amazing site that 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:47.040 clearly has a lot of thought involved in it, a 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:50.480 lot of mental construction and symbolism, and we are often 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:54.040 at pains to really understand what it meant from modern perspective. 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:55.960 A lot of great work has gone into it, and 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.000 we have a lot of great, great answers now to 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:03.840 what went into it at different phases, and some of 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:07.600 the ideas out there do evolve around the way Stonehenge 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:11.080 sounded as well as looked. Yeah, and um, as we 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:13.880 had discussed before, this Stonehenge is something that has been 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:15.520 in the works for hundreds and hundreds of years. So 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:19.440 think about all those people, all those generations adding to it, um, 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:23.200 adding symbolic layers to it as well, and you get 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:25.880 to the soundscape of it, and that becomes a very 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:30.399 interesting aspect of it as well. Waller in the October 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:35.439 edition of Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, and 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:38.119 Waller at the time was acting as independent scholar, he 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:42.000 details how the shape of Stonehenge mimics the patterns of 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:46.399 positive and negative interference produced by two sources of sound, 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:50.200 an auditory illusion that may have been imbued with something 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:54.560 that's in like otherworldly significance by a culture that didn't 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:59.080 necessarily understand the physics of the phenomenon, but sort of 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:02.120 understood that there was something happening. Yeah. He says that 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:04.719 the Stonehenge might have worked as kind of a giant 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:08.840 sound wave interference filter. And and the interference here occurs 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:11.359 when when these we have two instruments that would would 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:13.880 play at the sing at the same time the same note, 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:16.640 each creates sound waves that have alternating high and low 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:20.360 pressure segments, so when the high and low pressure segments collide, 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:25.760