Sonic Landscapes, Past and Present: An Archaeoacoustical Study of Pleito

Summary

Located on the Wind Wolves wildlife preserve in South Central California, there are several spectacular rock art sites. Created by the Native Californians who inhabited the landscape, they have been the focus of a number of studies over the years, but none of these studies concentrated on the sound quality of these spaces. The correlation between the placement of rock/cave art, and the acoustic properties of the space in which it is found, is increasingly being studied under the rubric of ‘archaeoacoustics’. In this study, we employ both ‘standard’ and novel approaches to the study of the spectacular painted site called Pleito (CA-KER-77). This paper details the methodology and results of the ‘standard’ method, which employs a sine sweep and impulse analysis in order to determine the sonic properties of the local landforms in relation to where the art was placed. More importantly, a frequency response analysis of a traditional song performed by a member of the local Tejon Indian illustrates the deep importance of sonic landscapes within contemporary Native society.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20623