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In the field of archaeology, music archaeology has emerged as a significant area of scholarly interest. Despite over 40 years of development in Chinese music archaeology, there remains a lack of systematic bibliometric analysis within the academic community. This study addresses this gap by using core journal articles from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) as the data source, selecting 719 high-quality articles through keyword searches. We utilized software such as CiteSpace and VOSviewer to perform cluster analysis and burst word analysis on the keywords, identifying the historical research status, key journals, major research institutions, and emerging research frontiers in Chinese music archaeology. The findings reveal three distinct developmental stages in Chinese music archaeology: the initial stage, development stage, and peak stage. The research model is predominantly driven by universities with institutional support, though collaboration between research institutions remains limited. The central themes of music archaeology revolve around two main aspects: unearthed musical instruments and the ritual music systems and culture. Additionally, three frontier research areas have been identified: Liu Fei's tomb, ancient qin, and decorative patterns. Future research is expected to further explore instruments such as Bianzhong and Bianqing. This study represents the first application of bibliometrics in Chinese music archaeology research, providing a structured framework for existing research in this field and offering valuable insights for future scholars exploring potential directions in music archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music and sound cannot be experienced through writing and numbers. Writing freezes time onto paper; as a time-based medium, sound cannot be heard without temporal motion, and acoustic metrics are silent data. For a complete experience of sound, it needs to engage our bodies. Digital multimedia technologies offer powerful approaches to understanding the acoustics of the past, and this work will explore a number of those affordances. In particular, this work explores the use of apps that illustrate archaeoacoustic effects, set digitally within visual and acoustic archaeological cultures. The ways of immersing audiences through projection, acoustic simulation, field and studio recordings, and musical performance will be discussed. The use of virtual reality (VR) headsets is explored to create a sense of deep-flow and presence amongst audiences, total immersion in an experiential phenomenological understanding of interacting audio and visual fields, as well as setting such results within an appropriate context. This study will examine how acoustics results at caves in Northern Spain, in various phases of Stonehenge, and at Paphos Theatre (all World Heritage Sites) can be explored using VR and multimedia technologies, evaluating the comparative advantages of the use of different technologies. It proposes that such integration of visual and sonic modelling using interactive digital technologies is effective as a non-representational theory approach to compliment empirical studies, allowing understanding that goes beyond numerical analysis and binary dialectics to engage directly with the material of archaeological sites in an embodied manner, and address the real-world complexities of acoustic ecologies and their contexts.

Excavated Japanese zithers are likely the oldest surviving stringed instruments in East Asia. This article reviews diachronic changes that occurred in the forms of wood zithers in pre- and protohistoric Japan over approximately two millennia (ca. 1500 B.C.-A.D. 600). It highlights developments such as the addition of resonator boxes, average size increase, and inclusion of figural ornamentation. Results indicate that these formal developments, in addition to the adoption of a seated playing posture as portrayed in Kofun haniwa musician figurines, were driven by the needs of growing communities and their leaders. This analysis suggests that examining changes in musical instruments can be used alongside traditional lines of evidence to research the origins of social complexity and thereby carves out space for a humanistic approach to the study of prehistory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Starting from early Arabic sources, the absolute pitch of the Early Abbasid ʿūd is considered and related to evidence on pitch usage in Roman-period sources. Similar instruments, it is argued, must have existed already in late antiquity. Iconographic evidence takes us back to late Classical Greece, whose music would have provided especially fertile ground for designing such a lute. In contrast to the traditional tuning in fifths and fourths throughout, lutes with equidistant design had also existed for a long time, likely also on precursors of the ʿūd. The association of this style with the name of Manṣūr Zalzal must therefore be reassessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article initially deals with the difficulties that can arise when sound recordings of archaeological sound objects are made in museum rooms. In order to reduce these problems as much as possible, a simple but effective, sound-reduced recording chamber has been developed. It is used in the FWF (Austrian Sciences Funds) project "Metallic Idiophones between 800 BC and 800 AD", which investigates bells, pellet bells, and jewelleries with jingles. The chamber was constructed from 8 mm thick poplar plywood panels. Its isolation consists of a double layer of mineral wool, Rockfon Facett Plano 20 mm. Measurements have shown a reduction of background noise by up to 21.4 dB SPL in various museum rooms. The transportable recording chamber is weighing only 7 kg and is therefore ideally suited for sound recordings in museums and other collections. This article describes shortly the making of the chamber and examines its noise reduction levels by means of a series of measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, about 470 female ceramic figurines are known to originate from Iron Age sites across Jordan. 1 This article sheds light on a distinct type by studying a recently discovered figurine from a newly excavated settlement at Jneneh, Wadi az-Zarqa, in north central Jordan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cantology names an approach to the songish impulses that are a ubiquitous aspect of human cultures. It aims to divert our attention from the more restricted objects of musicological and ethnomusicological scrutiny by discerning song formations, conditions of possibility that define experiences of society and history along songish lines. These formations, local phenomena in cantology's broad purview, emerge from the interactions of levels of cultural production including the performative, the discursive, the metadiscursive, and the archaeological. We outline a cantological theory, then briefly characterize four successive song formations in the West, reaching from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of the fatal voyage, General Carleton was transporting a cargo of tar and iron. This cargo facilitated the preservation of artefacts: the spilled tar formed a shell, which protected the artefacts from seawater. Therefore, the wood was not damaged nor deformed. These conditions allowed the divers to find another musical instrument, which happened to be a wooden fife. It was lying in the south-eastern part of the wreck, behind the mainmast step, where most personal belongings of the crew members were discovered. The state of preservation of the flute is good. The X-ray photo confirmed the cylindrical cross section of the instrument. It’s dimensions indicate the C# or C tuning (transposed to B or Bb). Notwithstanding its atypical two-part construction, it should be classified, according to the Anglo-Saxon nomenclature as a fife, that is „a small cylindrical transverse Flute, but with a narrower bore and hence a louder, shriller sound than the flute proper”. The maker’s marks are visible on the surface, under the embouchure hole and between the 3rd and the 4th finger hole. The name indicates that the fife was made by John Just Schuchart or Charles Schuchart. The dating suggests Charles (1720–65) as the maker. He had a shop on Chandois-street, Covent-garden, London, called “Two Flutes and Hautboy”. Based on the signature type it can be said that the fife was produced in years 1759–65. The collections around the world include 8 recorders, 26 transverse flutes, 3 oboes, a clarinet and a bassoon from the workshops of father and son. It might be possible that there are no preserved analogies for the described instrument, which enriches the known collection of Schucharts’ instruments by one fife.

According to pluralism about some concept, there are multiple non-equivalent, legitimate concepts pertaining to the (alleged) ontological category in question. It is an open question whether conceptual pluralism implies anti-realism about that category. In this article, I argue that at least for the case of music, it does not. To undermine the application of an influential move from pluralism (about music concepts) to anti-realism (about the music category), then, I provide an argument in support of indifference realism about music, by appeal to music archaeological research, via an analogy with Adrian Currie's indifference realism about species licensed by paleobiological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Se presenta una introducción a la revista que discute sobre arqueomusicología con un enfoque en interpretaciones sobre la relación entre arqueología y música, iconografía y epigrafía en fuentes del Clásico Maya y un estudio sobre instrumentos musicales.

The village stage is of particular interest to archaeology because it represents the end of a way of life based mainly on hunting, gathering and nomadism and the beginning of agriculture and the establishment of the first villages. This period also saw the beginning of pottery represented in utilitarian objects for food preparation and consumption, but also in other artifacts such as figurines and musical instruments. This paper presents data on the evidence of musical instruments from village sites in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, corresponding to the Early Pre-Classic period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document has the central purpose of highlighting the Peruvian archaeological sound heritage. It ponders its historical, artistic, cultural and scientific importance and supports the reasons that justify its study, systematization and management, and, in this way, claim its transcendence and contributions to the better understanding of cultural processes in the Andes. We start with the considerations and reflections on sound and its importance in the evolution of species and as a generator and transformer of culture in humanity. The Wayllakepa Project and the results that, like the present essay, derived from it are then described. Likewise, an account is made of the problems of musical research in Peru, their encounters and disagreements; an overview of the background of studies related to the Peruvian archaeological sound heritage is outlined through a chronological bibliography that goes from the late nineteenth century to the present, and the currents that have taken place in the construction of the theory and methods of archaeomusicology are made known, highlighting the contributions of Ellen Hickmann, Cajsa Lund, Dale Olsen, Julio Mendívil and Adje Both. We conclude by highlighting the importance of the treatment and restoration for scientific purposes of archaeological sound artifacts, and we make known the final considerations regarding what is outlined in this proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pellet bells from 15 graves of the avar cemeteries komárno IV, VIII and IX were examined for their position in the graves, their types, their acoustic and psychoacoustic parameters and their metallurgical compositions within the framework of the research project 'Metallic idiophones between 800 Bc and 800 aD in central europe'. Based on the results, assumptions could be made about their functions. Burials with pellet bells are only a minority among all the total amount of burials of all three cemeteries together and date from the middle avar period ii onwards. only five graves belonged to children. these pellet bells can be interpreted as amulets and rather silent signal instruments, fixed on the clothes of the persons. the other ten grave belonged to horsemen and their horses. these pellet bells were part of the horse harness and served as jewellery, warning signal instrument and amulet. Most of the pellet bells were hammered of bronze sheet, and followed by those cast in bronze. But there are also pellet bells hammered of iron, copper and brass sheet. their main frequencies could be determined between 1.5 - 4.5 khz. acoustic and psychoacoustic parameters can help to identify also similarities and differences between the objects and to get an idea of the actual sound. especially loudness and level can also be used to draw conclusions about the use of the objects. a video with the original sounds of the pellet bells was created and loaded up on the internet platform youtube: 'Pellet Bells from the avar Period in komárno'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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• Archaeological interpretation of materials, architecture, and the spatial layout of human occupation is coming to focus on the aural aspects of the world. • How past people created and used sound and music had a direct impact on daily life, on how they dealt with uncertainty and adversity, how they communicated with the supernatural, marked life events, celebrated new life or a good harvest, mourned their dead and remembered their ancestors. • The material cultures of ancient Latin America, in their breadth and depth of musical and sounding materials, present ideal conditions for the exploration of past sound practises at multiple scales. To practice music archaeology is to enter into a dialogue between the humanities and the sciences, social and otherwise. Music archaeology is part of the humanistic study of past sounded behaviour, ritual practice, and soundscapes, as well as a global history of discursive representations about humans' capacity for music. It is also the scientific inquiry of sound technology through time, of materials and provenience, dateable stratified contexts anchoring developments in technique and skill to past places of manufacture and interpretation in time. The material cultures of ancient Latin America, in their breadth and depth of musical and sounding materials, present ideal conditions for the exploration of past sound practises at multiple scales. This article provides a brief orientation to the broad theoretical underpinnings and most widely utilised methods of music archaeological research as practised in Latin America. Through the lens of ancient Latin American societies, we argue that music archaeology provides a template for truly interdisciplinary research that operates at multiple scales, from the practises of individuals to larger societal interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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• Shell horn production for Andean rituals shifted between conch and ceramic over millennia. • In the early colonial period shell horns were used in propitiatory pilgrimages. • Ceramic shell horns were complex musical instruments crafted by itinerant specialists. • Technological hotspots indicate independent invention and long-distance interaction. • Performance in ensembles shaped the soundscapes of ceremonial centers. This paper addresses the enchainment of skills and interactions for the production of ceramic shell horns, and the meaning of these musical instruments whose sounds have shaped the ritual soundscapes of the central Andes since the boom in public architecture in the second millennium BC (early Formative Period c. 3800–3300 BP). Linguistic and ethnohistoric reviews shed light on performance practices and meanings at the time of conquest. Contextual analysis of thin sections of ceramic shell horns excavated in Keushu (Yungay, Ancash, Peru) and dated to the Early Intermediate Period and early Middle Horizon (c. 2200–1600 BP) suggests the agency of specialist itinerant potters. Crafting processes are reconstructed by bringing together material analysis (petrography, X-ray tomography, X-ray diffraction), bioarchaeology, studies of instrument organology, and ceramic ethnoarchaeology. Informed by experimental reconstruction distinct modeling techniques are distinguished and crossed with available provenience data to suggest three independently arising traditions or hotspots in northern Ecuador, on the central Andean coast, and in the highlands of northern Peru. The ritual sounds and soundscapes of the latter area are discussed. Like earlier conch horns, ceramic shell horns played a pivotal part in ritual performances that accompanied the development of irrigation-dependent agrarian and pastoral lifeways in the Andes. Enduring symbolic linkages between shell horn sounds, the sea and irrigation water may indeed represent a powerful embodiment of the voice of God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the investigation of a number of metal musical instruments, from the Roman period, by combining non-invasive portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and technical analysis. The study is part of the European project EMAP (European Music Archaeology Project, 2013-2018) which aims to highlight Europe's ancient cultural roots from variety of perspectives, including: musical, scientific and "sensorial". In particular, the analysis and technical details of some Roman cornua stored in the Naples museum will be presented. The cornua under investigation came originally from excavations carried out in Pompeii. The characterization of the metal alloy and of the various soldering materials was performed utilising X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy in a totally non-invasive mode by means of portable no-contact equipment. This choice of technique resulted from the impossibility of transporting the instruments out of the museum for further investigation and also of taking samples for laboratory analysis. The alloys utilised in the cornua from Pompeii are made up of copper and tin, with a tin content of around 1%. Solders are made from copper, lead and zinc (about 4-5%). Mouthpiece, receivers when present, exhibited high counts of zinc. The use of a brass alloy for solders identifies a sophisticated technological ability which was employed when creating the musical instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strung rattles of teeth, shells and hooves have traditionally been thought to be among the earliest musical instruments. These sound producers, which are suspended from the neck, arms, legs or clothing, are often used to highlight dancing. This study seeks to explore whether similar rattles can be traced to the northern European Middle Neolithic. The research material comprised fifty-three animal tooth pendants from graves at Ajvide, Gotland, Sweden (c. 2900–2300 cal.bc). Microscopic analysis showed that the pendants from Ajvide are well-worn and abraded, especially on their opposing perforated sides. Because the pendants usually appear in clusters or hem-like rows on the hips or legs of the deceased, a plausible explanation for their use-wear is that they once struck each other. This concussion resulting from the wearer’s movements would have created a rattling sound. The acoustical properties of this sound can be demonstrated with copies of animal teeth. This article aims to provide insight into the previously little explored world of Neolithic sound. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay reviews Iain Morley's The Prehistory of Music, an up-to-date and authoritative overview of recent research on evolution and cognition of musicality from an interdisciplinary viewpoint. Given the diversity of the project explored, integration of evidence from multiple fields is particularly pressing, required for any novel evolutionary account to be persuasive, and for the project's continued progress. Moreover, Morley convincingly demonstrates that there is much more to understanding musicality than is supposed by some theorists. I outline Morley's review of the archaeological and ethnographic literature, and then go on to critique his assessment of philosophical and evolutionary theories, offering some alternative perspectives that might better benefit his project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The author discusses the relationship between archaeology and popular music, focusing on methods of potentially incorporating archaeology into the study of modern popular music. Topics addressed include an archeological approach to the study of materials related to popular music, the connection between popular music and heritage, and popular music's connection to particular cities and urban places.

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Pier Leone Ghezzi (1674-1755) was mainly active as a visual artist in Rome, where he was in contact with many artists, writers and scholars, and especially with the contemporary world of patronage of which he left memories in his vast graphic production of thousands of portraits and caricatures. Among this oeuvre prevail the protagonists of musical life with more then three hundred items. This dominance is a reflection of the artist's passion for vocal and instrumental music and especially for the opera. However, Ghezzi also cultivated other interests closely related to medicine, scholarship, history, and archeology. In addition he was a collector of artifacts (particularly of rings, cameos and engraved stones) during a period in which Rome, on the one hand, promoted major excavations on Via Appia and when, on the other hand, the important aristocratic families vied for collecting all the prestigious items that came to light in their palaces and gardens as a result of purposeful excavations or of random discoveries. Ghezzi arranged numerous albums with drawings of antiquities, now mostly preserved in the Codex Ottobonianus of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, particularly aiming to provide for himself and for posterity models that reflect different aspects of ancient art. These models were taken from paintings, sculptures, potteries and metal objects found in tombs (but also referred to illustrations that appeared in archeological publications at the turn of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries). One of these albums, dedicated to "Lyres, vases and the lightning of Zeus", invites to connect archeology and music, with their historical scholarly examination. Although some of the drawings in this album that represent lyres and harps, have already been investigated in some specialized studies aimed at exploring Ghezzi's passion for antiquity, the present paper consider them in a systematic manner. Analyzing the forty-seven drawings of lyres and their sources from MS Ottob. Lat. 3109, with respect to both the captions provided by Ghezzi and the scholarly literature, not only stimulates thoughts on organologica! and music-iconographic issues but also reveal the knowledge that the eighteenth century had about ancient music and about the multifaceted world of symbols and myths in which the art of sounds and its instruments were often the protagonists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About one millennium ago Angkor used to be one of the mightiest empires in the world. However, there is only scarce information available about its culture, because there are hardly any literal sources left except one contemporary report by a Chinese trader, Zhou Daguan, written at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Because of the almost total lack of "classical" written sources, the stone-carvings of musicians in Angkor could have a crucial function in research about this ancient culture. Of course, they can only be interpreted if results of other disciplines are taken into consideration, mainly those of ethnology and archaeology. But also the research results from these disciplines are still quite limited, what implies that the music iconography could serve as a central part of Angkor research, which is per se urged to inter-disciplinary approaches. Music iconography can shed light on the ethnic and social structures of Angkor as well as reconstruct the place music had in that society. The context in which musicians are represented on bas-reliefs of Angkor Wat are military ensembles. A musician is never depicted alone, but always within an ensemble of three to thirteen musicians, playing percussion and often brass and/or woodwind instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Revista Espanola de Antropologia Americana is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)