PROGRAMME

EAA 2025 session «New Approaches to Archaeoacoustic Studies» organised by Joshua Kumbani, Margarita Diaz-Andreu and Zorana Đorđević, representing the EAA Artsoundscapes and the Cult-Aural projects.

Date: 2 September 2025

Music and sound played a vital role in the past, but this soundscape has been lost because sound is intangible. Therefore, reconstruction of the past life ways without reconstructing the soundscape of the past incomplete. The effects of sound sometimes influence how people make certain decisions and if not properly assessed this aspect can be easily missed or go unnoticed in the reconstruction of the past. Acoustics studies has fairly received attention from various researchers working on different themes and time periods. This session invites abstracts from all researchers who are working on the effects of sound from the past focusing on the various time periods and using various research methods. The objective of this session is to bring together researchers who are investigating the effects of sound in the past as well as investigating the musical instruments or sound producing artefacts from the past and their possible effects in entertainment and rituals settings. This session seeks to start a discussion on the various approaches which are being used to reconstruct the effects of sound among the past communities and perhaps steer new approaches and new debates with regards to the theoretical and methodological approaches used in archaeoacoustics studies.

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14:15 –  EXPERIMENTAL APPROACHES TO ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS ACOUSTICS: BONE CLAP-PERS AND BULLROARERS FROM MATJES RIVER SITE, SOUTH AFRICA

Joshua Kumbani (University of Tübingen | University of Johannesburg)

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14:30 –  NEOLITHIC SHELL TRUMPETS IN CATALONIA: AN ARCHAEOACOUSTICAL APPROACH

Miquel López Garcia (Departament d’Història i Arqueologia, Universitat de Barcelona) – Margarita Díaz- Andreu (Departament d’Història i Arqueologia, Universitat de Barcelona | Institut d’Arqueologia Universitat de Barcelona (IAUB) | Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA))

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14:45 – MUSIC AND PERFORMERS OF THE PAST: ARCHAEOMETRYOF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS MADE FROM BONE AND ASSOCIATED HUMAN REMAINS

Raquel Jiménez Pasalodos (Universidad de Valladolid) – Olalla López-Costas (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela | Stockholm University) – Susana De Luis Mariño (Museo Arqueológico Nacional)

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15:00 – COSMOLOGY, SOUND AND FORAGER SOCIETIES. THE ARCHAEOACOUSTIC STUDY OF SITE 26LN211, WHITE RIVER NARROWS (USA) AS A CASE STUDY

Margarita Díaz-Andreu (Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA) | Universitat de Barcelona (UB)) – Lidia Alvarez-Morales – Daniel Benítez Aragón – Diego Moreno Iglesias (Universitat de Barcelona (UB))

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15:15 – THE RESONANCE OF HISTORY: FLUTE INSTRUMENTS IN ANCIENT INDIAN ART RELIEFS

Divyanshi Gupta (Institute für Indologie und Zentralasienwissenschaften)

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15:30 – ACOUSTIC MEASUREMENTS IN FINLAND’S HISTORICAL TAFONI

Jami Pekkanen (University of Helsinki, Cognitive Science) – Riitta Rainio (University of Helsinki, Department of Cultures)

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15:45 – DISCUSSION

16:30 – THE TOWERS ARE LIT, ARE THEY ALSO HEARD? EVALUATING THE SENSORY INTERACTION BETWEEN NURAGHI AND THEIR LANDSCAPE

Tim Klingenberg (Institute of Archaeological Studies – Ruhr-University Bochum)

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16:45 – SOUNDSCAPES OF ERANSHAHR

Domiziana Rossi (Cardiff University)

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17:00 – WHISPERS OF THE DIVINE: WIND, SACRED SOUND, AND ORACULAR COMMUNICATION AT DODONA

Erica Angliker (Unicamp)

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17:15 – A CONVOLUTION METHOD FOR RECONSTRUCTING CLASSICAL SOUNDSCAPES

Ella Peltonen – Mikko Mäkitalo (University of Oulu) – Laura N issin (University of Tampere)

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17:30 – RESONATING ACROSS THE LANDSCAPE: PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS AS COMMUNICATION DEVICES

Zorana Dordevic (Departament de Història i Arqueologia, Universitat de Barcelona) – Joshua Kumbani (University of Tubingen) – Margarita Díaz Andreu (Departament de Història i Arqueologia, Universitat de Barcelona)

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17:45 – RECONSTRUCTING THE 14TH-CENTURY SOUNDSCAPE OF THE GREAT CHAPEL AT THE PALAIS DES PAPES: ARCHAEOACOUSTIC METHODS AND VISITOR ENGAGEMENT

Julien De Muynke (Eurecat, Technology Center of Catalonia, Barcelona | Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Institut Jean Le Rond d’Alembert) – Stéphanie Peichert (Talkartive S.A.) – Julien Ferrando (Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, IDEAS, Aix-en-Provence) – Brian F. G. Katz (Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Institut Jean Le Rond d’Alembert)

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18:00 – DISCUSSION