fig.1 - General view northwards across part of the Gors Fawr stone circle, showing Carn Menyn on the horizon.

fig.2 - Exploring Gors Fawr

fig.3 - Looking northeast along the alignment formed by the two outlying standing stones ]]> tag:www.landscape-perception.com,2008://1.25 2008-06-20T15:32:57Z 2008-06-25T20:16:31Z

Time & Mind 1:3, November 2008). Not only does Carreg Samson “nod” in the direction of the location of these monuments, it also shows some of the same siting characteristics.]]>

fig.1 – Carreg Samson with the Strumble Head upland on the skyline beyond

fig.2 - In and around Carreg Samson

fig.3 - A walk round Carreg Samson ]]> tag:www.landscape-perception.com,2008://1.24 2008-06-19T23:48:13Z 2008-06-25T19:50:54Z

Discography Berezan, Jennifer, 2000. Returning. [Albany: Edge of Wonder Records.] The Kilmartin Sessions – The Sounds of Ancient Scotland. [Kilmartin House Trust] Reznikoff, Iegor, 1994. Le Chant de Fontenay. [B000004A9W] Watson, Chris, 1996. Stepping into the Dark. [Touch TO:27, London] Z’EV, 1991, One Foot in the Grave [Touch TO:13, London]]]> What we present here is a serious resource in its own right – probably the best single source on archaeological-related acoustics anywhere, plus some items relating to visual mapping… ]]>

Detailed views

fig.1 - Gors Fawr is a circle comprised of short stones situated 4.6 km SSW of Carn Menyn, beneath the Preseli upland as a whole. Because the monument is intervisible with features on Preseli, we have included it in the Pilot Study’s area of investigation.

fig.2 - Gors Fawr viewed from the south. It can be seen that the Carn Menyn and neighbouring cluster of rocky outcrops on Preseli form the central skyline as viewed from the circle. This phenomenon of a possible “holy hill” visible on the extreme horizon to the north of a stone circle’s position recurs time and again throughout the British Isles. So the monument was probably not randomly located.

fig.3 - Here we partially decode the northern skyline seen from Gors Fawr. This example points up the general need for an “extended heritage awareness” regarding Stone Age monuments: in this case, if the trees at the bottom of the frame grow much taller, they will partially obscure the skyline view, thus damaging a possibly important aspect of the full significance of Gors Fawr.

fig.4 - This pair of standing stones are located a few hundred metres to the north of the Gors Fawr circle, and may be its outliers. Viewed as an alignment like this, they point to a hilltop (now obscured by the nearby trees visible in this picture) over which the midsummer sun rises.

fig.5 - Naturally, the two standing stones can be viewed not only as an alignment but also as a kind of “portal” – here we see them framing part of the Preseli upland. It is perhaps significant that the two stones pretty much mark the perimeter of the bogland area in which the Gors Fawr circle is located – a change in the character of the local landscape. S.P.A.C.E.S. also think it possible that the collection of stones here mark a station along the route by which the bluestones destined for Stonehenge were transported off Preseli.

fig.6 - Lichen patterns on one of the two outlying standing stones at Gors Fawr

fig.7 - Up on top of the Preseli upland, views can range from minimalist scenes like this to rugged, rocky chaos.

fig.8 - So, by contrast, Carn Breseb and its surrounding smaller carns make the Preseli upland seem like a lunar landscape.

fig.9 - Carn Ddafad-las, one of the Preseli outcrops where it is thought at least one of the Stonehenge bluestones was sourced, looks almost like a fairy castle in the misty rain that so often obscures Mynydd Preseli…

fig.10 - …but reveals its true rocky nature in clear light.

fig.11 - The eastern crest of Carn Menyn. The Carn Menyn complex of natural rock outcrops, thought to be the source of the majority of Stonehenge bluestones, ranges in a long arc from the east to the west along the southern rim of Mynydd Preseli, with its rocks cascading down a steep slope to the south.

fig.12 - Part of an area on the crest of Carn Menyn where the S.P.A.C.E.S. archaeologists think they have identified a prehistorically marked-off area associated with a specific source of Stonehenge bluestones.

fig.13 - Sun rising over Carn Menyn crest. A timeless scene that would have been familiar to Stone Age eyes.

fig.14 - Part of the southern slopes of Carn Menyn. Amid the tumble of rocks a single tree stands – one of only two that grow on Carn Menyn, similar to what is thought to have been the case in Neolithic times.

fig.15 - A closer view of the lone tree – a tangled interplay of organic and inorganic. (See also Acoustic Mapping.)

fig.16 - Part of the westernmost outcrop of the Carn Menyn complex

fig.17 - Another part of the westernmost Carn Menyn outcrop

fig.18 - It was not known until very recently that there was any prehistoric rock art at all on Preseli, but a few examples have now been discovered. These hollows (“cup marks”) are engraved on a stone that may once have been standing but that has now tipped over. Here, uniquely, we use shifting, angled lighting to better display this intriguing new discovery. (See also Acoustic Mapping.)

fig.19 - The towering northern end of Carn Gyfrwy, close eastern neighbour to Carn Menyn.

fig.20 - Vividly-coloured lichen sheltering within the rocky folds of Carn Gyfrwy.

fig.21 - Autumn sunrise over Carn Gyfrwy.

fig.22 - Looking northeast from within the long morning shadows of Carn Gyfrwy, showing Carn Ddafad-las at left and Foeldrygarn at right. Foeldrygarn is one of the commanding landscape features on the northeastern edge of the Preseli upland, and is crowned by two large Neolithic chambered monuments that have yet to be archaeologically investigated. This hill is not being visited as part of the limited scope of the Pilot Study, but would be in the full Landscape and Perception project.]]> tag:www.landscape-perception.com,2008://1.19 2008-06-19T15:42:33Z 2008-06-25T20:12:41Z

why Neolithic people should have wanted to move the stones such a long distance. This is an issue both S.P.A.C.E.S. and the Landscape and Perception project are trying to address – see A Stone Age Holy Land?. ]]>

fig.1 - Two bluestones standing in front of a later sarsen trilithon at Stonehenge.

fig.2 - The “pellets” of feldspar embedded into this spotted dolerite boulder on the lower slopes of Carn Menyn are clealry visible as tiny bumps on its surface.

fig.3 - This broken piece of spotted dolerite shows why it is called “spotted” and “bluestone”

fig.4 - View from within Stonehenge showing part of the outer ring of bluestones inside the ring of taller, lintelled sarsen stones. The Heel Stone is visible in the distance between the sarsen uprights. ]]> tag:www.landscape-perception.com,2008://1.18 2008-06-18T17:34:02Z 2008-06-25T20:11:47Z

Archaeoacoustics – The Sounds of Ancient Places Many of us like to visit the ruins of ancient monuments and temples, trying to picture what went on at these places. But it tends to be a silent movie running in our minds. Fortunately, archaeologists are at last beginning to realise that ancient people had ears, and the various soundtracks of antiquity are beginning to be investigated. The term “archaeoacoustics” simply means the study of sound in archaeological contexts. There are two basic ways this can be done, by exploring natural sounds and acoustics at monuments and other sites, or by investigating and measuring the acoustic parameters of a place by use of electronic instrumentation.

Natural Sounds

Percussion: “Ringing Rocks”

We now know that sound was important to, and probably considered magical and mysterious by, people at least as far back as the Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) painted caves of France and Spain, dating to tens of thousands of years ago. It has been found that some of the stalactites and stalagmites in them are musical, in that they will issue pure bell-, drum- or gong-like notes when struck. Some archaeologists refer to these musical calcite formations as “lithophones”. Most if not all of these relatively rare features had been painted with geometric signs and animal figures in Stone Age times, and they also display ancient percussion marks – so ancient, in fact, that they are visible only through a covering of calcite deposits. Currently, Russian and Finnish researchers are studying “palaeoacoustic” ringing rock sites on the shores of Lake Onega in Russia. They have found that the sound these natural stone “drums” make when struck is amplified by the surface of the lake, causing it to carry for kilometres around. The features are surrounded by concentrations of rock art. Similarly, archaeologists in the United States have identified “ringing rocks” – boulders that emit bell- or gong-like sounds when struck. Many of these, too, are marked with rock carvings. Ringing rocks also occur in Europe (and elsewhere, of course) – a musical boulder carved with prehistoric markings is known of in Scotland, just for example, and Mynydd Preseli, Wales, source of the Stonehenge bluestones, is currently being examined for similar features in the acoustic mapping work of the Landscape and Perception project’s Pilot Study, the first such organised research of its kind (see Taking A Closer Look and Acoustic Mapping).

Echoes

Another natural sound sometimes characterising ancient archaeological places is the echo. In the Palaeolithic caves it has been found that echoes from the lithophones or human voices tend to be strongest from rock wall surfaces which contain the famous rock paintings. One of the pioneers of this work is French-based researcher, Iegor Reznikoff, who used his own voice to explore the resonance and echo phenomena of the painted caverns. He also studied Bronze Age petroglyphs (rock carvings) at the edges of lakes near Helsinki, Finland, and found them to be carved on rock surfaces that produce distinctly more complex echoes than other surfaces when the initiating sound is delivered from boats on the lakes. (One of these lakes was the original Swan Lake.) More recent work in the USA, Australia and elsewhere by American acoustic researcher, Steven Waller, indicates that some prehistoric rock art panels produce echoes that act like “soundtracks” to paintings of animals, simulating the rumble of depicted animal herds, for instance, or the roar of a lion or sabre-toothed tiger. In Canada, the mighty cliff known as Mazinaw Rock rises out of Mazinaw Lake in the aptly-named Bon Echo Provincial Park, Ontario, produces exceptional echo phenomena. Along the bottom of the cliff face, just above the waterline, there are many dozens of red ochre rock paintings, produced about a thousand years ago by the ancestral Algonquin people. The echoes are particularly noticeable where these rock art panels cluster. The Native American tribes of the Great Lake region believed that a spirit world existed behind rock surfaces, which were conceived of as being like “membranes” between that world and this. Places where rock met water were thought to be especially propitious locations for rock manitous or spirits to exist. (These are also the locations where echoes are strongest.) The Indians thought that while in their ritually-induced trance states, their shamans could penetrate through cracks and crevices in the rock-face into the spirit world beyond, and also that spirits could pass through from behind it into the human world. It is not hard to appreciate that echoes would have been considered part of such traffic.

Other Ways the Old Stones Can Speak

Archaeoacoustic researchers are finding that there can be other sonic properties to archaeological sites. Sometimes, they can be manifested by wind, water or heat expansion sounds issuing from crevices in the rocks of natural sites (which then became venerated and often marked by rock art), or by blowing into holes in venerated rocks. Also, the architecture of some temple structures appears to have been deliberately designed so that percussion or wind would produce sounds providing weather warnings or even quite sophisticated “acoustic symbolism”. Examples of all these types of acoustic sites have been identified in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Greece, Britain and elsewhere, though there is much more research to be done. (See Stone Age Soundtracks – check the Bibliography.) It has to be remembered that archaeoacoustics is a study as yet in its infancy. And yet, the formal sensibilities that are the roots of today’s installation art are to be found within its remit.

Instrumental Investigation

Archaeoacousticians have also begun to employ electronic acoustic instrumentation to probe the sonic secrets of ancient monuments. Two teams made the early running in this regard: archaeologist Aaron Watson and acoustician David Keating then of Reading University, England, and Robert Jahn with one of the present Landscape and Perception investigators in a survey conducted by the Princeton-based International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL) group. The two teams worked totally independently of one another. The Reading team deployed an amplifier and a digital audio-recorder with omni-directional microphone at a range of megalithic sites. The amplifier issued pink noise – that is, sound with a wide frequency spectrum. They observed the behaviour of the sound at the recumbent stone circle called Easter Aquorthies in Aberdeenshire, and found the altar-like recumbent stone there to act like a stage, so an officiant singing, uttering or playing music in front of it would project sounds into the centre of the standing stone circle, with returning echoes from the perimeter standing stones, which increase in size and thus reflective effectiveness. The distribution of stronger sound was contained almost exclusively within the circumference of the stone circle. In a sense, the Reading pair conjured the ghosts of Stone Age ritualists standing at specific spots. Elsewhere in Scotland, the Reading duo performed drumming inside the chambered Neolithic mound of Camster Round, Caithness. Although the drumming could not be heard more than a hundred yards away in the open air outside the cairn, the sound faintly but seemingly magically reappeared inside the neighbouring chambered mound of Camster Long at least twice as far away. In Orkney, at the massive stone block of the Dwarfie Stane, which has chambers and passages that were hewn out of the solid rock in Neolithic times, they encountered another odd phenomenon: when they set up a resonant frequency inside the chamber using their voices, they found that the massive stone block and the air within it appeared to shake vigorously. The vibration was also evident to people standing outside on top of the tomb! The ICRL team used an omni-directional loudspeaker as a sound source driven by a variable frequency sine-wave oscillator, and a 20-watt amplifier. This was linked to a digital multimeter to verify frequencies, and the amplitude of generated sound waves was plotted using portable sound-level meters. An effectively random selection of megalithic chambered sites in England and Ireland were tested for their natural (primary) resonant frequencies, with only the great chambered passage-mound of Newgrange in Ireland being pre-selected due to the need for special permission. The findings surprised the ICRL researchers: all the investigated chambers were found to have a natural primary resonance frequency in the 95-120 Hertz band, with most at 110-112 Hz – this despite variations in sizes and shapes of the chambers. There was even some evidence of “retro-fitting”, as if internal features within the chambers had been placed to “tune” the natural resonance to the required frequency. The great chamber of Newgrange resonates effectively at 110 Hz, and the 19m (62-foot) passage behaves like a wind instrument, with sound waves generated within the chamber filling it, their amplitude decreasing towards the entrance. The 110 Hz frequency is in the baritone range – the second lowest level of the male singing voice. It is therefore possible to speculate that chanting male voices could have been used in these supposed tombs for the silent dead. This could have been on ritual occasions, or for oracular purposes, in either case most probably at those times of year marked by the entrance of sunbeams into the chambers, for these sites are astronomically aligned – at the 5000-year-old Newgrange, for instance, the beams of the rising midwinter sun shine through a special roof box above the passage entrance, down the long passage and into the central chamber, making the stones there glow like living gold. This embryonic work was among the first of its kind conducted in archaeological settings, but a great deal more work needs to be done. In 2007, the ICRL group conducted much more technically sophisticated acoustic measurements inside the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum and within the Tarxien temple, both on Malta (this work is currently under analysis), while the Landscape and Perception project will also aim to investigate certain aspects of this kind of work further if sufficient resources can be assembled.

Mind and Body

Both research teams considered the physiological and mental effects of sound, on the assumption that one of its ritual functions was to generate altered mind states to aid visionary experience. In one acoustic experiment at the Orkney chambered mound of Maes Howe, Keating reported being put into a state in which his body became relaxed but his mind alert, an initial stage of deep trance. Other bodily sensations were felt during on-site experimentation, including the illusion that the sound was being generated inside the participant’s head. The role of infrasound has also been considered. This is sound beneath the threshold of normal human hearing – a little below 20 kHz. It can’t be heard but it can be felt. Drumming and the sounds of certain other musical instruments can contain infrasonic components, and these would likely be enhanced inside the cavities of megalithic chambers and passages. Meanwhile, the ICRL team appear as if they might be on the brink of scientifically linking the 110 Hz primary resonance band with effects on the brain: current experiments are showing that the specific frequency range around 110 Hz tends to stimulate a certain electrical brain rhythm associated with particular trance-like states. (For a detailed peer-reviewed paper on this, see Time & Mind 1:1, March 2008 - email timeandmind@bergpublishers.com.) Further investigation of effects of on-site resonances on brainwave activity is also research the full Landscape and Perception project will have on its agenda. ]]>

fig.1

fig.2 - Lithophones occur in caves around the world, not only in Europe. Here, two resonant calcite deposits in the Mayan ritual cave of Loltun, Yucatan, are being struck.

fig.3 - Some of the markings found on various lithophones in the Palaeolithic caves.

fig.4 - This rock, at an ancient vision quest site in the wilderness on the California-Mexico border, rings like tubular bells when struck with a hammerstone. It is the only rock in the vicinity to be marked with a rock engraving (dated to c.500 A.D.). [This research was conducted by one of the present Landscape and Perception investigators with help from funding by the A.H.R.C.]

fig.5 - It has been found that percussive sounds reflect back in highly focused ways from rock art painted on curved surfaces, like this Aboriginal painting in a rock shelter in the Kimberley, Australia.

fig.6 - A researcher points out a rock art panel on Mazinaw Rock. The paintings can only be approached by boat — except in winter if ice on the lake is thick enough. [This research was conducted by one of the present Landscape and Perception investigators with help from funding by the A.H.R.C.]

fig.7 - Keating (left) and Watson with their equipment at Stonehenge. They mapped how sound could travel through the monument, passing unhindered along certain axes but being blocked in certain other areas. In the process, they noted that the inner surfaces of some of the large upright sarsen stones had been slightly hollowed, creating concave surfaces that could “focus” the sound in certain parts of the monument. ]]> tag:www.landscape-perception.com,2008://1.17 2008-06-18T17:17:14Z 2008-07-02T19:21:13Z

listening to the Carn Menyn area of Mynydd Preseli. What would Neolithic people have heard out on that wild tract of upland? What sounds would have held significance for them – perhaps beyond what we would find meaningful nowadays? We must always bear in mind that sound in some of its less familiar forms, echoes for example, seemed far more mysterious to ancient people, who lived in a quieter world and did not possess the scientific worldview with its wave model of sound, than it does to us, in our noisy culture where we guzzle sound. As we remark in A Stone Age Holy Land?, many cultures around the world, at the same technological level as Neolithic people in Britain, thought spirits inhabited rocks and cliffs. Places where there were echoes, or where rocks made unusual sounds for one reason or another, were invariably viewed as special. As spirit rocks. Such may well have been the case on Stone-Age Preseli. The key question arose – what would have been Stone Age sounds on Preseli? Well, first of all, of course, natural locational sounds – wind, rain, birdsong. For our whole audio-visual mapping operation, we are trying to direct our cameras and our audio-recording devices toward elemental, timeless perceptions in this ancient area to see if sensory data can help illuminate what made this tract of land, and the bluestones, so special to prehistoric peoples. We feel this overall process will help attune our modern senses to primary landscape perceptions as well as provide possible archaeological information. Factors slowly became apparent too – echoes, the interaudibility between monuments and natural carn outcrops, the acoustics of hollows in the landscape where monuments had been placed, and, perhaps most dramatically of all on Preseli, the presence of “ringing rocks” or lithophones. We know that past generations of local people were aware of this recurring phenomenon on Preseli because of the Preseli village name, Maenclochog (see Taking A Closer Look), and this feature may have helped to make Mynydd Preseli a Stone Age holy land. So we set about trying to establish an approximation of what kind of percentage of the rocks on and around Carn Menyn do produce distinctive sounds. To do this, we have been testing rocks in random transects across the outcrops. In the process, we are gradually building up an audio-library of the acoustic signatures of the ringing rocks encountered. The work is ongoing. As stated in Visual Mapping, for our whole audio-visual mapping operation we are trying to direct our eyes and cameras and our ears and audio-recording devices toward elemental, timeless perceptions in this ancient area to see if sensory data can help illuminate what made this tract of land, and the bluestones, so special to prehistoric peoples. We feel this overall process will help attune our modern senses to primary landscape perceptions as well as provide possible archaeological information. We provide just a small sample of sounds here from our acoustic mapping. It is important to note that these are simply basic field recordings – more advanced recording will be taking place, both during the Pilot Study and of course during the full project when we will record whole soundfields. Some of the results of this further work will be placed on a separate page in this website in due course. ]]>

fig.1 - As noted in Visual Mapping, only two trees grow on Carn Menyn itself, probably similar to the situation in Stone Age times. Here we can listen to the south wind blowing through one of the tree’s branches. A tree can use its own voice to tell the wind’s tale.

fig.2

fig.3

fig.4

fig.5 - This is the rock with cup marks we noted in Visual Mapping. It is also a ringing rock. What is especially interesting about this is that the people who made the rock art could not have done so without discovering that the stone was a lithophone. Sound and vision, Stone Age style. ]]> tag:www.landscape-perception.com,2008://1.10 2008-06-18T16:16:57Z 2008-07-02T11:35:18Z

Both Art and Archaeology The Landscape and Perception project is aimed at making a multidisciplinary, detailed study of selected prehistoric landscapes involving not only visual and acoustic factors but whole other subject areas, especially archaeology, within its arts-based context. This is particularly evident in the project’s Pilot Study, which is examining the source area of the Stonehenge bluestones on Mynydd Preseli in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

Landscape and Perception: the Project

Primary Audio-Visual Aspects of Selected Ancient Landscapes

The parameters of the planned full project as a whole are, in brief, as follows.

Overview

In today’s digital maelstrom we are experiencing de-contextualised information processing, diminishing attention spans, and increasing removal from unencumbered sensory experience of natural surroundings. This project aims to counter these tendencies by acoustically and visually mapping parts of the Welsh Preseli hills (source of the Stonehenge bluestones) and the Neolithic complex of Avebury in Wiltshire, attempting to look and listen as if with Stone Age eyes and ears. Digital field data collected in the process will then be used for “re-contextualised” studio and research applications. Implications will emerge for archaeological interpretation, audiovisual practice, heritage management, and various cognitive studies.

Context

Today’s rapidly developing digitised information processing is leading to lack of knowledge or even interest in the provenance of information, and decreasing primary, non-digital sensory experience. Neurobiologist Susan Greenfield notes that “there is no robust conceptual framework” anymore, and reports that neuronal firing patterns are actually changing as a result of digital technology. This in turn is leading to the increasingly specialised character of human knowledge – the sense that the range of what we understand and experience is becoming progressively restricted or pre-programmed. With the ever-increasing use of mobile phones and iPods, dramatically developing digital entertainment multi-platforms, and digital navigation devices, there is a danger of the culture becoming increasingly abstracted from its primary sensory environment.

Project Aims and Objectives

To provide students, practitioners and consumers of audio-visual culture with a sensory visit to pre-modern perception, in order to provide a contrast with contemporary sensibilities, therefore contextualising them. The corollary of this is to indicate ways usage of digital media can reconnect with primary and contextualised sensory experience. To make a forensic-like study of the audio-visual perception of two iconic prehistoric landscapes – Preseli in Wales, Avebury in Wiltshire – and collecting raw audiovisual field data. (a) To further phenomenological insights into pre-modern modes of perception, specifically hearing and vision. (b) To explore effects of monumental acoustics on the human brain, furthering preliminary research indications. Both (a) and (b) to have application to recent methodological developments in cognitive archaeology. To process the collected data for creative, pedagogical and further research purposes. Utilising multifarious dissemination channels.

Methods

Fieldwork:

Acoustic mapping. (i) Recording the seasonal locational sounds of both landscapes – wind, birdsong, etc. (ii) Identifying other natural acoustical phenomena that prehistoric people may have found magically significant. For instance, some rocks on Preseli have curious resonant properties. (A clue is given in the name of the Preseli village, Maenclochog -- “ringing stones”.) Was it this characteristic that made the bluestones special, explaining why some were taken to Stonehenge? (iii) Acoustically examining the Preseli bluestones now in situ at Stonehenge. (iv) Determining the primary resonant frequency of the stone chamber within West Kennet Long Barrow, Avebury, extending an earlier acoustic survey in which the investigators took part. (v) Testing inter-monument audibility and other acoustic phenomena. (vi) Neuro-acoustical investigation: EEG recording of brain activity at West Kennet Long Barrow and possibly other monuments while resonant audio frequencies are being generated. Visual mapping. (i) Study of sightlines, intervisibility, orientation and other visual relationships between natural and monumental features, including night work using powerful light sources to test critical instances of intervisibility. The field information will be plotted onto maps of 1:25,000 scale or larger. (ii) Identifying any topographical “simulacra” (the likeness of natural features to cultural forms), a visual reflex imbued with significance in ancient cultures. (iii) Basic notation of diurnal and calendrical sunrise/set skyline points from appropriate sites.

Desk and Studio Work

Ongoing literature research. Organisation of collected data. Archiving of all field material – digital audio and photo, slides, maps, paperwork, notes, EEG recordings, etc. (ii) Collation of material preparatory to further processing. Processing of collected data (i) Creative: presenting an archive of landscape photography and sound recordings for exhibition (ii) Research: in conjunction with expert consultants, utilisation of soundfield technology to recreate monument chamber resonant frequencies to further examine effects on the brain. (iii) Archaeological: studying the interpretational implications of the collected data in conjunction with expert consultants. (iv) Pedagogical: Development of collected and collated material for lectures, workshops, audiovisual studio sessions, and public presentations and exhibitions.

Output and Dissemination

This website. Production of audio-visual creative pieces. Preparation of raw source material for audio-visual practitioners and students. Pedagogical provision (including fieldtrips and workshops). Refereed journal papers and conference presentations. Popular publication articles. Interpretive data for archaeologists. Unique information for heritage management. Unique neurophysiological and cognitive data for further study. Curating exhibitions. TV and other media content. Carrying out the full project brief will depend on the necessary resources being made available, but the pilot study has been instigated through the auspices of the Royal College of Art’s Research Department so that at least a range of field data can be collected and some output commenced. It will also demonstrate that the concept of the full project as a whole is not some abstract whimsy but a serious and practical proposal with achievable aims and objectives, given the required support. Because it has by definition limited resources, the pilot study has focused on just the Mynydd Preseli area. This is a wild, natural landscape with a deep time profile, thus ideal for the project’s aims; also, it is part of one of the prehistoric landscapes selected for study by the planned full project.

2. S.P.A.C.E.S.

Strumble-Preseli Ancient Communities and Environment Study

The directors of this archaeological survey are Geoffrey Wainwright and Professor Timothy Darvill, Director of the Centre for Archaeology, Anthropology and Heritage at Bournemouth University, England. Darvill is the archaeological consultant to the Pilot Study, and one of the partners for the planned full project. It is most fortuitous that the Pilot Study was able to commence while this new archaeological investigation of Preseli was under way. Although there is a deep mystery as to why the bluestones were taken from Preseli to be erected at the site of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain well over two hundred miles away, an astonishing fact is that remarkably little archaeological research has taken place on Preseli. There was some early work by Professor Grimes, and some important work by Peter Drewett, but the Royal Commission had never surveyed the area, for example, and there were no excavations to speak of in the area. So Darvill and Wainright decided start exploring the source of the bluestones rather than the place where they were deployed, which is what everyone has focused on in the past. What they and their teams found early on was that the whole hilltop of Mynydd Preseli was covered with archaeology – they have now recorded approximately three hundred sites in the area now, altogether. They saw that the most distinctive bluestones, the spotted dolerites, outcrop best in the central area of Carn Menyn which had some sort of structure defining it and enclosing it. All around that area they found pillars which had been detached from the outcrops yet abandoned for various reasons – some of them broken. As with the Landscape and Perception project, S.P.A.C.E.S. hopes that art and archaeology will be working in tandem and a useful and even unique resource of primary audio-visual material will be achieved. nb: Darvill gives a full interview in the journal Time & Mind (issue 2, July 2008). It is at quite an early stage in its survey and there is much more work to do – for instance, it intends to conduct excavations on the Preseli over the next few years. Click here to access the article on www.ingentaconnect.com UPDATE: In April 2008, our Pilot Study consultant, Professor Timothy Darvill, and his S.P.A.C.E.S. co-director, Geoffrey Wainwright, obtained extremely rare permission to excavate within the Stonehenge monument itself in order to explore a section of the bluestones settings. It is hoped this investigation will reveal exactly when the bluestones were erected at the site, and perhaps more. See these links: www.english-heritage.org.uk news.bbc.co.uk]]>

fig.1 - Outcropping rocks on Carn Menyn, Preseli.

fig.2

fig.3 - Professor Darvill points out a feature on Mynydd Preseli

fig.4 - A bluestone pillar, presumably abandoned because it became cracked.

fig.5 - Part of a Carn Menyn promontory S.P.A.C.E.S. has identified as a specific Stonehenge bluestone source and which they have discovered was seemingly sectioned off as a special place by means of an earthen boundary or temenos. ]]> tag:www.landscape-perception.com,2008://1.4 2008-06-18T11:13:26Z 2008-06-25T20:17:57Z

how the rocks were transported from Preseli over such a long distance to Salisbury Plain where Stonehenge stands, rather than why. It is the why that most concerns us here. Theories have been few and far between, and most of them have been them pretty simplistic, such as suggesting the fact that the rocks are bluish in colour with white spots made them special. This might have been partially true, but there had to be other reasons as well. Archaeologists are now aware that rocks from natural places that were apparently venerated were circulated over considerable distances in the Neolithic era of prehistory. These “pieces of places” were, in effect, relics charged with the sanctity, the mana, of their homeland, much as the bones of saints that were circulated and venerated in Medieval times were thought to possess magical and healing qualities. So what besides their colour made these bluestones so special? Two unexpected factors may be relevant – water and sound.

Bluestones and Healing Waters

Professor Timothy Darvill, co-director with Geoffrey Wainwright of the current archaeological survey of Preseli, S.P.A.C.E.S. (Strumble-Preseli Ancient Communities and Environment Study), and consultant to the Landscape and Perception Pilot Study, refers to an interesting element in the 12th-Century account of Geoffrey of Monmouth (see The Story of the Bluestones). In this, Geoffrey uses the myth of Merlin bringing the stones to Stonehenge to state that the stones had medicinal properties that could be accessed by washing the stones and then pouring the water into baths. The water absorbed the healing virtues of the stones. There is a folk belief in Pembrokeshire even today that the Preseli bluestones possess healing qualities. S.P.A.C.E.S. soon found that the distribution of holy wells in the Preselis, and in west Wales generally, is dense. Many such springs and wells are believed to have healing properties. The survey noted about a dozen springs issuing out of the mountain immediately around the edge of the dolerite outcrops such as Carn Menyn. Of those that S.P.A.C.E.S. have found, a few are “enhanced springheads”, enhanced in the sense that the water source has been cleared out and enlarged, and a little wall has usually been built thus creating a pool where the water emerges. This indicates that such a spring was viewed as special and that the ancient people who so viewed it wished to obtain water at source, as it came out of the ground, Mother Earth, rather than further down the mountain where it becomes a rivulet and so less pure. S.P.A.C.E.S. have also found features of archaeological interest around such enhanced springheads, like prehistoric rock art (not known to have been on Preseli previously – see Visual Mapping), fallen standing stones, and small cairns. So one “magical” value of the bluestones might have been their perceived healing capabilities, perhaps turning Stonehenge into a kind of pilgrimage spa.

Spirits in the Stones

There is yet another intriguing (and surprising) aspect to the Preseli bluestones – a relatively high proportion of them (perhaps as much as ten percent) have the usually rare property of being “musical”. That is, they can ring like a bell or gong, or resound like a drum, when struck with a small hammerstone, instead of the dull clunking sound rock-on-rock usually makes. That this property has been noted locally down the generations is shown by the “Maenclochog” (“Ringing stones”) village place-name in the Preseli area (see Taking a Closer Look). Part of the Landscape and Perception Pilot Study field research involves making a series of “acoustic assay” transects of Carn Menyn to try to obtain for the first time a reasonably accurate estimate of the proportion of such rocks there, while at the same time compiling a unique audio-library of the acoustic signatures of such stones or “ringing rocks” as they are sometimes called (see Acoustic Mapping).

Land of Origins?

The underlying reason for the perceived importance or special nature of the bluestones by Neolithic people therefore seems to lie in the idea that Mynydd Preseli was viewed as a sacred land in that era. This is reinforced by the presence of both major and many minor Stone Age monuments on and around the Preseli upland. The concept of a mythic “point of emergence” of the First People, a land of cultural origins, was widespread around the ancient world. The ancestral Shoshone Indians, for example, considered the region containing Death Valley in California to be tiwiniyarivipi – “mythic land, sacred country” or the land “where the stories begin and end”. To our modern eyes the region may seem harsh and arid, but it all depends how one looks at it… The Zuni Indians of Arizona, on the other hand, still make a hundred-mile-long annual pilgrimage from Zuni Pueblo near Gallup to Grand Canyon, because they say the First People emerged from a place close to Ribbon Falls, deep within the canyon. In Mexico, the Huichol Indians make a three-hundred-mile-long annual pilgrimage to the Wirikutà plateau, their mythical homeland, and while there they undergo specific rituals in order to gather the mind-altering, mescaline-containing cactus, peyote, which they use as a sacrament in their rituals throughout the year. So it is quite plausible to consider that the Preseli upland was drenched in Stone Age mythology – and it is an area, incidentally, where “magic” mushrooms (among other varieties) grow in abundance. As with Wirikutà and the Huichol, Preseli may have been the sacred destination of pilgrimages, possibly linked with the ritual, sacramental use of psilocybe mushrooms – and we can imagine that in bemushroomed visionary states the ringing of the rocks may have taken on magical dimensions, even causing the spirits in the stones to appear and dance before stoned Stone Age eyes… ]]>

fig.1 - An “enhanced springhead” at the foot of the Carn Menyn outcrops. It is now above the modern spring line so dry for much of the year

fig.2 -Striking certain Carn Menyn rocks produces a ringing sound.

fig.3 - An eerie yet magical light pervades this distant view of Carn Breseb on Mynydd Preseli

fig.4 - The Pentre Ifan dolmen – one of the great Neolithic monuments of the Preseli region. Carn Ingli (“Hill of Angels”) is in the background, and this natural feature was visited from at least Mesolithic times, c.7,000 years ago, right up to early Christian times. It also possesses major magnetic anomalies.

fig.5 - Tiwiniyarivipi, Death Valley, the ancestral sacred land of the Shoshone.

fig.6 - Preseli fungi

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