On 17 October 2023, I left Zimbabwe for Barcelona to join the Artsoundscapes project, led by Principal Investigator Professor Margarita Díaz-Andreu. I became part of a multidisciplinary team comprising archaeologists, acousticians, and psychologists — a truly inspiring group to work with.
Accepting this opportunity meant stepping far outside my comfort zone: a new continent, a new language, a new city — everything was unfamiliar. Yet, one and a half years later, the experience has proved immensely rewarding. My time in the ERC Artsoundscapes project at the University of Barcelona resulted in three journal publications, one book chapter, three conference presentations, and a poster presentation.
Beyond the academic achievements, my stay in Barcelona was personally enriching. As an FC Barcelona fan, living and working in the city for 18 months was a dream come true. I cherished spontaneous walks and sightseeing in this majestic city. I am deeply grateful to all my colleagues who made my transition smooth and enjoyable. I am indebted to Margarita Díaz-Andreu who went out of her way to secure accommodation for me before my arrival in Barcelona, and she assisted me in many ways to make my stay in Barcelona comfortable. My stay in Barcelona was fantastic because of the warm hospitality I received from Lorenza and her family when I lived in their family apartment for the entire duration I was in Barcelona. At work Berta Berengueras Gallego was the fixer of most of the administrative requirements I had to undergo, and I am indebted to her generous assistance in many ways. I am grateful to Dr Jordi Nadal from the University of Barcelona who took me around places during weekends to visit surrounding places and site seeing around Barcelona.
Celebrating my birthday with some of my colleagues at the University. Note my fc Barcelona T-shirt!
Visiting the Neolithic Mines of Gavà with Jordi Nadal
In my second week in Barcelona, I was lucky enough to be on time to participate in a work-oriented week of research related to the implementation of Artsoundscapes on the island of Ibiza — a moment I considered fortunate. We visited the Punic-Ebusitan sanctuary cave of Es Culleram (5th–2nd centuries BC) to assess its acoustic properties both inside and outside the cave. The team included Margarita Díaz-Andreu, Octavio Torres Gomariz (a Margarita Salas post-doc fellow studying sound and music in the Punic period), Diego Moreno Iglesias (a colleague from the Artsoundscapes project), Zorana Đorđević (a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow working on Medieval acoustics) and myself. The fieldwork training spanned four days and was a remarkable experience. I got an opportunity to participate in the modern acoustic measurements using specialised equipment.
At Es Culleram, Ibiza
During my year and a half in Barcelona, the research topic I was asked to lead for the project focused on identifying depictions of musical instruments and dance scenes in Southern African rock art with specific attention to Zimbabwe and South Africa. While the project was primarily desktop-based, we had planned fieldwork in Zimbabwe to verify data and capture photographs at a dozen sites. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, the fieldwork did not materialize. The investigation, therefore, relied on published materials from Zimbabwe and South Africa. In addition to many publications, some published decades ago, an important source of information was the SARADA database. I hope this work lays the foundation for future research in music archaeology in the region.
The progress on the on-going research was presented in several venues. The first one was the 2024 30th Annual Meeting of the EAA (European Association of Archaeologists) held in Rome (28–31 August), where I co-presented a poster with Professor Díaz-Andreu titled «Unveiling the Drumbeat: Exploring Drum Motifs in South Africa and Zimbabwe.» The poster highlighted the rare occurrence of drum depictions in Southern African rock art, with only two known examples from Bushman Point and Grootvlei. During the same conference in Rome, we also presented a paper with the title “Beyond the move: a systematic analysis of dance scenes in the rock art of Zimbabwe and South Africa” that resulted in two publications, one in Telestes and another one in the Journal of Music Archaeology.
Presenting my joint paper at the EAA Rome 2024
Soon after Rome we were in Valladolid to participate in the International Council of Traditional Music and Dance (ICTMD) conference, in collaboration with the ICTMD Study Group on Iconography and Performance Arts. The paper presented there presented to a completely different audience our research on dance scenes in the rock art of Southern Africa.
At the University of Valladolid, with a map of the Iberian Peninsula behind me.
A year later together with Margarita Díaz-Andreu and Zorana Đorđević, I co-organized a session on «New Approaches to Archaeoacoustic Studies”. This collaboration between the Artsoundscapes and Cult-Aural projects featured twelve presentations, grouped into artefact acoustics, room acoustics, and site acoustics. The session explored how past communities engaged with sound and music and examined evolving methodologies in archaeoacoustic research.
Our research has culminated into a first article focusing on the musical instruments’ depictions in Zimbabwe. This research compiled some interesting finds where aerophones inform of flutes and trumpets were found as well as a possible bullroarer. Other interesting find was a drum from the Bushman Point site in Chivero. Rattles dominated the findings. Rock art is a reliable source of music archaeology.
Three publications examining dance imagery from Zimbabwe and South Africa’s Limpopo Basin which is still in press; an article focusing on dancing scenes from four South African provinces: Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, and Western Cape; and a third article that focuses on the dancing scenes from the Zimbabwean plateau excluding the Limpopo region. We attempted to systematically categorize and interrogate whether all dance scenes in rock art represent trance or healing rituals, or if some may depict entertainment or initiation dances. We consulted ethnographic data from San communities in Botswana, South Africa, and Namibia. Our findings suggest that dance in rock art has often been discussed in general terms, rather than through a music-archaeological lens. As a result, we proposed that there are other dances which could have been performed for entertainment though ritual dances also took place.
As I look back, my experience in Barcelona challenged me to dig deep into archives, databases and existing literature about rock art to uncover more information about how past societies interacted with music and dance in their everyday life. Working alongside colleagues from Europe, South America, Asia, and myself from Africa was a true privilege. Our shared knowledge, diverse perspectives, and even the exchange of cuisines and cultural practices deepened my appreciation for global collaboration and human connection. Leaving Barcelona was bittersweet. While it was hard to say goodbye, I remain deeply grateful for the opportunity—one that has left a lasting impact on my academic journey and enriched my personal life in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
With my colleagues Zorana Đorđević, Tiangyi Dong and Margarita Díaz-Andreu at the EAA Rome 2024