Listening to Wood: Material Engagements with Sound and Trees

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeoacoustics: Sound, Hearing, and Experience in Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper in cognitive archaeology studies how skilled agents use eco-acoustical features of the environment as mnemonic device. Beginning with the question, What do trees know about canoes?, I excavate how ways of knowing can be deeply sedimented in nature by drawing on the ethnography of Algonquin rock art and fieldwork with Algonquin birch bark canoe builders. The Algonquin demonstrate how natural sounds are fully canvased for what they are capable of teaching us about how to live. Ultimately, I propose that the human mind may possess undeveloped sensory pathways that could be used to recover long-lost wisdoms by attuning to sonic resonances. Through sensory ethnography this research finds that it is possible listen to trees as they communicate many of the core procedural skills necessary for building an Algonquin canoe. This knowledge is absorbed (not imposed) into cognitive becoming through sensuous similarity with the materials, where the formal physical properties of materials serve to structure the audible signal that reaches the ear and manifest as an enduring interface. Listening to the material relations between trees and humans is essential for the transmission of whole bodies of cultural knowledge that are at risk of receding into quiet dormancy.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Archaeoacoustics: Sound, Hearing, and Experience in Archaeology

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32005