January 9, 2021 Miriam Kolar, Visiting Scholar, Amherst College: “Performance Experiments in Archaeoacoustics Research at Chavín de Huántar, Perú.”
Why are seashells excavated in highland Andean archaeological sites? Strombus shell pututus (conch-shell horns) are the only sound-producing instrument both excavated at Chavín and depicted in its stone and ceramic iconography. Our research on the Chavín pututus is both functional and relational with the assembled archaeological evidence and site environmental setting. Performance experiments with replica Strombus pututus in Chavín’s monumental architecture and highland environment reveal clues about their ancient usage at the site. Performance studies demonstrate a range of possibilities for archaeological interpretations of the roles of these instruments in what is considered the ritual center of a powerful cult with transformed shamanistic leaders. Site archaeoacoustical research leverages acoustical and auditory science to document and reconstruct the sonic communication substrate of the site; the physical context for sound-sensing and pututu performance.
Dr. Miriam Kolar’s cultural acoustics research (www.culturalacoustics.org) integrates acoustical and auditory science in a transdisciplinary, experiment-based approach to anthropological archaeology and the study of human-environmental interrelationships. Focused in Andean fieldwork since 2008, she leads archaeoacoustics and music archaeology investigations at the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Chavín de Huántar, Perú, as part of the site research and conservation program. Her project on Inca sonics began with acoustical fieldwork at Huánuco Pampa, Perú in 2015. A Visiting Scholar at Amherst College, she is co-organizer of the project “Digital Preservation and Access to Aural Heritage Via A Scalable, Extensible Method” (www.auralheritage.org) supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities in the U.S.A. Dr. Kolar was a recent Weatherhead Resident Scholar at the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, NM, and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the Five Colleges (MA).