Stonehenge 'would have sounded like a cathedral' to Neolithic man

For Neolithic man, the effect of walking into Stonehenge would have been the audio equivalent of walking into a cathedral.

This is the theory of a team of researchers from the University of Salford, who spent four years studying the historic site's acoustic properties in a bid to crack the mystery of why it was built.

The researchers found that the space reacted to acoustic activity in a way that would have been completely novel to people 5,000 years ago - a rich reverberating vibration of sound they could not hear elsewhere.

Lead researcher, Bruno Fazenda said: 'As they walk inside they would have perceived the sound environment around them had changed in some way.

'They would have been stricken by it, they would say: "This is different".'


The researchers base their conclusions on the reverberation effects of the site. As sound is generated, it bounces back, and grows as more sound waves join it.

This is different to an echo, which is the report of one sound coming back to the listener.

Modern cathedrals can have reverberation times of ten seconds, or even longer, and concert halls have a time of between a two and five seconds.

A lecture hall has an optimal time of one second reverb, which is similar to Stonehenge's levels.

While this may not sound exciting to a modern reader, for Neolithic man, living in straw and mud huts, the change in acoustics would have been a novel and perhaps a religious experience.

Because the site in Wiltshire is in a derelict state, researchers travelled to Maryhill in the U.S. where a full-sized concrete reconstruction of Stonehenge was built in 1929 as a memorial to the soldiers of WWI.

They were able to make proper acoustic measurements that allowed an investigation into striking acoustic effects such as echoes, resonances and whispering gallery effects.

The second phase consisted in the creation of a full 3D audio-rendition of the space using a system comprised of 64 audio channels and loudspeakers especially developed at the University of Salford based on Wave Field Synthesis.

This system enables an accurate and immersive recreation of what Stonehenge would have sounded like.

Dr Fazenda said: 'This type of research is important because now we can not only see ourselves surrounded by the stones using virtual reality, but we can also listen how the stone structure would have enveloped people in a sonic experience.

'It is as if we can travel back in time and experience the space in a more holistic way.'

Dr Fazenda also thinks that this research opens a whole new world for archaeoacoustics: 'Of course there are other sites of interest, and as soon as the methodology for studying acoustics in ancient spaces becomes robust then it can be used as a part of archaeology and I believe in the next ten years a lot of such studies will include acoustics.'

[dailymail.co.uk]