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Scott Thompson / Maryhill Museum file
Maryhill Museum's concrete replica of Stonehenge was designed to duplicate the ancient English monument.
British researchers conducted experiments at a Stonehenge stand-in as well as the actual 5,000-year-old monument to determine how sounds echoed within the ancient circle of stones — and they found that the sounds would have taken on an eerie reverberation.
"We can expect such a space to have a striking effect on someone of that time, identical to what we feel nowadays when we go into a church," the University of Salford's Bruno Fazenda, who orchestrated the research project, told me in an email.
The study is described on the university's website in a technical analysis as well as a news release issued last week, but the upshot is that the Neolithic people who gathered inside the circle could well have had a religious aural experience. That meshes with the view of most archaeologists that the monument on England's Salisbury Plain took on the trappings of a place of healing — a "Neolithic Lourdes," if you will.
It's not easy to reconstruct the sounds of ancient Stonehenge: For one thing, many of the standing stones are missing from what was thought to be their original places, ruining the acoustic arrangement. For another thing, researchers are not allowed to run electrical power out to the site, or bring in a generator. That limits the types of sound equipment and scientific instruments that can be used on site.
Replicating the reverb
Fazenda and his colleagues from the University of Huddersfield and the University of Bristol found a couple of clever solutions to those challenges. They brought air-filled balloons to the Stonehenge site in 2009, then popped the balloons with a needle and recorded the reverb with a microphone and a digital field recorder. The reflected sounds of the pops were hard to make out, but they appeared to follow a pattern of 1-second reverberation time at midfrequencies, for locations that were within the ruins of the stone circle.
To study the reverberation patterns in detail, the team headed off to the Maryhill Museum in Goldendale, Wash., which has a full-scale concrete replica of Stonehenge on its grounds. The monument was built by millionaire industrialist Samuel Hill as a tribute to fallen World War I servicemen. The museum let the researchers make their measurements with more sensitive instruments, powered by on-site generators. The same balloon-popping technique was used, and the readings confirmed the reverberation pattern that the team found at the real Stonehenge.
This is a video that illustrates acoustic effects at Stonehenge. The Maryhill Museum's concrete replica of Stonehenge is acoustically stimulated by a loudspeaker playing simple short bass drum beats at the resonant frequency of the space, in time to echoes heard there. This sets up resonance in the space, or standing waves.
"For an outdoor space, the stone circle exhibits quite a 'live' acoustic environment," Fazenda said. "In the Neolithic, such an environment was not very common at all. The only spaces that might sustain reverberation were caves and perhaps some natural features such as opposing cliff faces."
Fazenda said the echo effect would be much more like what you hear in a cathedral than in a concert hall.
"The center of the space has potential for some focusing effects," he said. "That's the point where all reflections arrive at the same time, and with the largest gap relative to direct sound. On paper we would expect that to sound striking. However, there are quite a lot of scattering effects from the stones, so the clear echoes are somewhat destroyed by it."
He stressed that it's not at all clear whether Stonehenge was designed with the acoustics in mind, but he and his colleagues do think that the setting would have added a special something to drumbeats, chants or music inside the stone circle.
'Research hobby'
Fazenda, who teaches audio production at Salford, has been working on this project for the past four years on an unfunded basis. "It has been a kind of 'research hobby' that I have managed to do after hours (don't really call it spare time)," he wrote. He believes the project could break new ground in the field of archaeoacoustics — the study of the sound characteristics of ancient spaces.
"The original focus was on studying the acoustic response of the space," he said. "The recent output has been that we replicated it using wavefield synthesis, which immerses you in a sound field, thus giving you the most approximate aural experience that you could get of being in the space. That was shown at a few recent events, and we have a permanent demo in our labs here at Salford. A wavefield synthesis system uses +64 channels and speakers, so it is not really portable."
Such a system can be tuned to provide a virtual-reality sense of the sounds of Stonehenge, as well as the sounds of other ancient settings that are no longer configured the way they were in their heyday. Want to hear the roar of the crowd in the Roman Colosseum? There's a wavefield synthesis app for that.
Fazenda is preparing a paper on his "research hobby" for Acta Acustica, the journal of the European Acoustics Association. He's also writing a chapter for a book on the acoustics and music of British prehistory. (For more on that subject, check out the website of the Acoustics and Music of British Prehistory Research Network.)
You can expect to hear more about the sounds of Stonehenge in the months and years ahead. In the meantime, give a listen to these sound files, and follow the Web links for more about archaeoacoustics.
Stonehenge sound files:
- Hand-clapping outside and inside the Maryhill stone circle (via Sonic Wonders)
- Univ. of Salford's rendering of a song with Stonehenge-style reverb (WAV file)
- Sounds of Stonehenge ... including a podcast on sound heritage
More about archaeoacoustics:
- Scientists revive sacred sounds
- Was Stonehenge inspired by a sound illusion?
- It turns out that cavemen loved to sing
- Stonehenge: Totally awesome place for raves
- Researchers re-create scary pre-Columbian sounds
- Acoustic archaeology yields mind-tripping tricks
- Listen to the sounds of science
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
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I listened to the video with headphones on ....
Quite remarkable sound effects from so little change in distance , by just relocating himself around the columns ....
With a roof and doors , having it completely closed in , would certainly make it an effective music hall ....
Thanks Alan Boyle ....
It certainly sounded better after I smoked a doobie.
Interesting research and interesting effects. I doubt that it was a consideration when Stonehenge was built. I think they were more concerned about it's orientation to the sun at certain times of year like the solstices. However, imagine what it would have sounded like with a Druid priest or priestess chanting in the center of Stonehenge, it definitely would have seemed a little eerie to people of that time.
just curious if they took into account that concrete may reverberate sound differently than the 20 or so types of rocks stonehenge is made up of.
Yes, that's actually one of the notes on the video.
Is this Stonehenge "nonsense" more important than the story on the former prime minister of Ukraines' incarceration and subsequent abuse behind bars....that seems to have been "buried" in the "boring news"???
Because this is the science section not the political section.
Was this the same team from the Discovery channel special a few years back? They were doing audio tests also.
Why did you click it? There's all kind of news.
Curious Bob - I'm sorry, I must have missed the last line:
"To confirm, this story is definitely more important than the former prime minister of Ukraines' incarceration and subsequent abuse behind bars."
You definitely do NOT fit your screen name, 'Curious' Bob! The political pages is someplace where you should stay.
More New Age hype without any evidence to support it...
Your world must be incredibly boring. How is this New Age? They are trying to investigate the acoustic properties of an ancient structure... that's about as anti-"New Age" as it gets. Doofus.
Yes, sound properties. They were not investigating its "magical" or "mystical" properties.
"More New Age hype without any evidence to support it..."
Did you even read the article let alone listen to the sounds? Or did you just see "Stonehenge" and then make some type of automatic assumption...? Before you even attempt to answer that, I'll make a better assumption and remind you there's no point for you to.
Shandril-
I know "new age" hype might sound like a lot of bunk, and I used to be a skeptic until certain events happened to me(at age 24). You'll get there, it might not happen when you want it to, but you will get there.
Try not to think of time as linear, but rather as a circle (how it affects the universe also),time is a dimension. We are dimensional beings, and the earth is also made up of dimensions. We live in the 3rd dimension, we see/hear/feel/etc..but don't understand much beyond that (4th/higher/spirits,ghosts,etc..). The earth and us are constantly evolving into the higher dimensions, at present we are living in the 3rd dimension and evolving into the 4th, then we'll go into the 5th and so on...up to the 12th dimension from what I understand so far.
Our vibrational frequency is much closer in relation to the earth as with the animal kingdom. Remember that light,sound,x-rays,tv/radio waves are ALL made up of WAVE LENGTHS, it's hard to conceive that light AND sound are both wavelengths, but it's true science, and that is the level of knowledge we understand, yet like most people i still have a hard time "wrapping my head" around the thought of both having so much in common.
A note that once electricity was not believed, you can't see it, but we know it is there right ? Also the earth is flat right ? It must be flat otherwise we would fall off if we sailed around to the other side, right ? But that too was proven to be false. Remember Newton ?
What about Newton "the father of modern science"? Did you know many scientist wrote him off, and thought he was insane ? It wasn't proven/accepted until about 100 years after his death, that light is made up of different wavelenghts(colors). Newton discovered this by watching light go through a prism, but it was written off as a cheap parlor trick.
So you see we are always on new breakthroughs and there will skeptics, so which are you ?
The Ancient (by Yes)
As one with the knowledge and magic of the source
Atuned to the majesty of music
They marched as one with earth
Sol, Dhoop
Sun
Ilios
Naytheet
Ah Kin
Saule
Tonatiuh
Qurax
Gunes, Grian
Surje
Ir
Samse
So the flowering creativity of life wove its
Web face to face with the shallow
And their gods sought out and conquered, Ah Kin
Do the leaves of green stay greener through the autumn
Does the colour of the sun turn crimson white
Does a shadow come between us in the winter
Is the movement really light
And I heard a million voices singing
Acting to the story that they had heard about
Does on child know the secret and can say it
Or does it all come out along without you
along without you
along without you
Where does reaon stop and killing just take over
Does a lamb cry out before we shoot it dead
Are there many more in comfort understanding
Is the movement in the head
And I heard a million voices singing
Acting to the story that they had heard about
Does one child know the secret and can say it
Or does it all come out along without you
along without you
along without you
Not that it really matters I guess, but according to the Yes bubbas (after reading scores of their interviews since I first started listening to them in the '70s), who's music I dearly love, a large chunk of their lyrics were non sequitur type nonsense...a lot like much of the hokum associated with Stonehenge.
I'm of a mind that it was more of a life/death/rebirth gathering place thing like some recent hypotheses suggest.
Regardless, I'd looove to set up a huge stereo system at Stonehenge and blast all of Tales From Topographic Oceans. Wow, that'd be quiet a trip!
K Man-
I think what "Olias of Sunhillow" may have been illustrating (to me at least) is the ability to extract knowledge from a given situation. But the group YES was a contemporary popular rock group, and it is possible that their lyrics may have had some original basis, yes(no pun intended)? Don't believe everything you hear associated with STONEHENGE, you have to trust your "gut" instinct and believe what you feel is true.
STONEHENGE is a topic I know very little of, yet I should know more about with my partial celtic heritage. One of the most interesting theories I heard was having to do with the river /water(?) canals that flow up to approx. the location of STONEHENGE and there are parallels with other areas on earth in this regard (Egpyt?), and it was a point (sorry I forgot the details and source)that I found most interesting from a purely theoretical point of view. Yes, the pagan beliefs you spoke of "life/death/birth" are related because those peoples were pagans, yet like the pyramids, anything beyond pagan beliefs have never been "fully" explained.
It would be frustrating to live in a world of 100% absolutes, I not concerned about having an "absolute" answer to everything, and it allows me to keep an open mind. I live with fears and doubts like most people, and I don't have a magical solution for you to hear, but I can offer you this: there are more things to life and the earth and universe than we as humans and scientists understand, and some of those items are lying right under your nose if you only let them.
You sound like a good person, let me give you some good advice: The most important thing you can do is to help people understand how critical the fast rate of destruction we are implementing upon the aquatic animals of earth. The start to do something about it, if you can. This is much bigger than the theories of STONEHENGE right now. We are also destroying(or allowing) our own future, be aware of the power big corporations have gained since the end of WWII(look up Eisenhower's most famous quote about the Military Industiral Complex?also used by the former MN Governor Jesse Ventura, Eisenhower was our friend to warn us about this evil power that is taking over our world) and they are literally running our middle class life into the ground in the name of their precious profits. By the way the oil industry and neither the automotive industry are not the largest corporations any longer, now it's....you guessed it, big Farrrm-a-SEA.
Flouride(for some reason spell-check is telling me I spelled flouride wrong..(?)), F-L-O-U-R-I-D-E in our water ?, did you know it damages the pineal gland, that tiny little gland that conventional scientist pretend to understand, but don't have a clue ! So for your sake and ours get involved now, thank you.
Our (Human species) willful ignorance, selfish short-sightedness and ego has already doomed our species and most others inhabiting this planet to extinction. All that's left to us is the time that's left to see this run its course and the collective denial we have to seeing it for what it is...
Then it's time to stop the duality and go back to the source....right ?
Yes would have been a much better group if they had refrained from writing nonsensical New Age-y lyrics.
Well, you know, I was born and raised in a non-English speaking country and because of that I learned to listen to the music and not care too much about the lyrics. Jon Anderson's voice is so beautiful and angelic so I never felt a need to understand what he was singing about.
And the same with Genesis where the lyrics are even more important to the song than in the case of YES. I love the voice range Peter Gabriel has but it's their music that I love like crazy.
In a way I consider myself lucky for not undestanding English until my late teens.
Did anyone else notice the outer ring is a nice orbital path, say the planets, and the inner ring if connected is at a different angle, much like the planets along the ecliptic and the moon on it's! Amazing! Stuff! Add that with the resonance and it hopefully creates some great imaginations of what took place long ago.
"Fake" is a bit harsh to describe the only full-scale replica of Stonehenge in North America. Near the town site of Maryhill, Washington, three miles east of Maryhill Museum of Art, the replica of Stonehenge was built by Samuel Hill. Dedicated in 1918 to the servicemen of Klickitat County, Washington who died in the service of their country during the Great War, Hill's Stonehenge Memorial stands as a monument to heroism and peace. Check out www.maryhillmuseum.org. I'm on the board and we're opening our new $10 million wing in May!
Yes, I feel kind of bad about that now.... I guess I used that for dramatic effect, but I think I'll call it a "Stonehenge stand-in" instead. Thanks for the note, Lee.
Fascinating! - thanks Mr. Boyle.
One has to wonder if the acoustic results were planned or just happenstance, but either way, it's interesting.
I Like to believe if possible that maybe if you altered the sound frequency we may have a form of communications to speak to other worlds within our galaxy or possibly outside our galaxy. It seems to me that Stone henge could have housed multiple sound barriers to perform that kind of action. it wouldnt hurt to try with the replica and the current technology to change the pattern within the sound frequency itself
The ancients combined art and science. That is the magic. Magic is awareness infused with science and art. Science studies the ancient discoveries to understand those mysteries. It does not undermine magic, it explains its physical properties. Science is a language/tool of discovery. Harmonics, whether it be happenstance resultant, or intended build can be duplicated after discovery. This is how humans evolve technology of course.
I want to go here.
Looks like an abandoned construction site to me
When is Spinal Tap gonna play there?
It's where they staged their rock concerts and invented the Beatles.
Looks more like something the kids were watching on a recent episode of Sponge Bob, it mades weird music too!
All this talk of ancient sounds and purpose makes me want to go to the bathroom,........and sing.
It was a robot head!!!
No 'silent but deadly' farts in there.
I found that if I put a microphone next to my butt after eating beans all day, it amplifes atonal reverberations emitted from my anus sufficient to scare the sh!t out of my cat. Smells really bad, too.
its unclear why its a big deal to conduct hard core experiments with the replica. as such, if there is any damage to it, the stones can be replicated again.
ultimately, the value of information that can be ascertained through experiments outweigh the value of a replica.
It's PAUL holding his BREATH
Can't REPLICATE without the REAL DEAL! IDIOT!
What a TWINKIE! HE's Eating too much Marble Cake!
This is fascinating....this field of archaeoacoustics is a marvelous new field, and seems to be giving us some truly rich findings in learning of the lives and accomplishments of the ancient ones...it's also wonderful to have the Mary Hill Museum Stonehenge just down the road. I truly wish that there could be the possibility of reconstructing Stonehenge to the letter, in the same kind of stone hewn by the ancients, not in concrete. and in terrain as similar as possible to the Salisbury Plain. That could really give some fantastic findings. Too bad that some of the idiot fringe insists that "ancient aliens" created Stonehenge. No, plain old people did it...by hand and the sweat of their brows, and so we have it among us to marvel at and study.
The thing is is that they can record how sound echoes from the replica, and do the same for the real stone types, to see how those particular stone types reflect/reverberate/change the sounds and they can then use computer modeling to replace the concrete 'stones' with their proper stone counterparts and model how it would sound then. The replica is thus quite important as it is a replica of the whole thing when it was all there, while the actual stones can show how that particular rock type and combination of rock types will react thus, combined, they are giving a good, accurate model of what the real Stonehenge would have sounded like in it's youth.
I have been to the Stonehenge replica and I have to admit that it is really awesome, I was there right at the Winter Solstice one time and could see the lineup as we got there JUST before dawn during a long road trip. I was vastly impressed even though it was only concrete, it was all lined up correctly and it was all there and it was a real blast!
Kate Holland- To thee Kate........after all, we are from the same source, your studies will lead you, you can go if you so desire.
You already "experience it" when you go into a deep sleep, it's the only way your "body" can rest, and your sub-conscience does a wonderful job of only giving you tid-bits of information in order you are not overwhelmed by the complexity. But no fear as it is really effortless and everyone does it and sometimes you're given a blurry glimpse through a dream(or memory), when your sub-conscience is feeling generous, or perhaps you initiate the action and your mind gives a small scene revealed. In either case, you'll learn all about it someday soon, and maybe we can joke about it, until then keep up the good fight, O' Kate of Holland !!
Kate O' Kate-
All life is made up of many things and frequencies being one ingredient that we cannot be without-
Keep up the good fight O' Kate of Holland !!
O' KATE OF KATES
How dare those fringes even think about the past, they have some nerve brining up Adam( A-DOM) or Satan (bringer of light), you've really got to wonder what "they" are up to ? The nerve, it's unreasonable and downright unnerving to say the least, hmm ?
Those crazy Druid kids and their reverb !
Hm-m-m-m...
Adding percussion/drums/bongos???...Go Richard Feynman!!!