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Mini-model of Stonehenge reveals how voices would have carried in original ancient monument
A team of researchers at the University of Salford in the U.K. has revealed how voices would have sounded 4,000 years ago inside of the Stonehenge monument. The group made a recording of their efforts and posted the results on SoundCloud.
Stonehenge is, of course, a monument built roughly 5,000 years ago by Neolithic people for unknown reasons—they left behind no written records. In modern times, the monument has become famous the world over, and attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. The researchers explored what a human voice would have sounded like inside the monument during its heyday. To find out, they applied a modern technique that has been used to help architects build concert halls with optimal sound characteristics. The technique involves building a small-scale model of a building prior to construction and blasting sounds at it at 12 times their normal frequency in a sound chamber to overcome the size differences.
[...] The researchers claim the voice in the recording sounds like it would have were the team member to have stood in the center of the monument while speaking all those years ago. They note that despite large spaces between the stones, a person's voice would have reverberated around the monument, producing an echoing effect. They also suggest it is not likely that the people who built the monument knew what impact it would have on a speaker's voice, but point out that it seems likely they would have taken advantage of the impressive acoustics.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday July 15 2019, @11:24PM (2 children)
I agree that it's wrong to say the purposes of these monuments is a complete mystery. We can make some shrewd guesses.
However, keeping idle hands busy doesn't make much sense. Even today with all the modern conveniences we have, people constantly complain of a lack of time. It's more helpful to think of the needs of people. What could Stone Age people want? It's a short and simple list: food, shelter, safety, health, sex, and a competitive edge. They're constantly scrambling just to survive to put much effort into busywork. Probably people could not be persuaded to work on Stonehenge on that basis, they would have to be duped into the labor in some fashion. Of course, religion springs to mind. But even if the priests were mainly interested in keeping hands from being idle, they had to have a pretty good story. And even the most dimwitted priests aren't going to waste all that effort just to move piles of rock back and forth, no, they're going to want all that effort to go towards some sort of glorification.
The mystery that may never be solved is figuring out what crazy, convoluted religious rationale (irrationale?) was employed. Was Stonehenge a magic circle that made hunting easier? Was it to awe and cow potential enemies? Was it a boss man's pet project, meant to display his wealth and power over others? Maybe it was for communicating or appeasing dead ancestors? Why did they think a circle of arches was the best shape for a monument? It does appear to have some astronomical meaning, but just to be a giant sundial and seasonal time piece, seems over the top for that. Whatever the exact reasons, we can pretty well guess that it's something along those lines. Very unlikely that it was a scientific experiment, or a friendly game to see who could build an arch the fastest, or merely busywork.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by legont on Tuesday July 16 2019, @12:00AM (1 child)
Most people overestimate progress and underestimate primitive life. You are giving an example saying:
Meantime primitive people had much more time and way more enjoyable working environments. They generally worked fewer hours than modern people and their work was not demanding.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/200907/play-makes-us-human-v-why-hunter-gatherers-work-is-play [psychologytoday.com]
"Constant vacation" their life was and required skills but not much labor, while we are slaves pure and simple; brain washed slaves at that.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @05:06PM
Unless they were persistence hunters ;).