A remarkable set of prehistoric rock art sites likely provided hunter-gatherers with an enchanting "multisensory experience" thanks to their special acoustic properties, a study has revealed.
Researchers sought to recapture the sensory experiences of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Finland's Lake District by investigating the acoustics of these sites, dated to between 5000 B.C. and 1500 B.C.
They consist of smooth, vertical cliffs rising directly from the region's lakes, featuring painted images of humans, boats, animals—such as elk or snakes—and sometimes also drummers.
"Rock art sites in Finland are considered sacred places, meeting places or ritual places for prehistoric people. They were not places where people lived. Some painted figures, such as drummers, also suggest musical activity," study lead author Riitta Rainio, an archaeologist with the University of Helsinki in Finland, told Newsweek.
"We wanted to study the acoustics of these rock art sites, as they seemed to provide an insight into the sensory experiences of prehistoric people, otherwise unattainable to us," Rainio said.
Where the water levels of the lakes had remained largely unchanged since prehistoric times, the acoustic environments still reflect sound in the same way as they would have thousands of years ago, according to the researchers.
"Therefore, these places are ideal for studying the prehistoric soundscape or sound environment," Rainio said.
The Finnish research team took acoustic measurements with microphones at a total of 37 rock art sites. The main method was to record "audio fingerprints"—which contain all the information about the acoustic characteristics of the place—from the lake, i.e., from the perspective of prehistoric hunter-gatherers approaching by boat.
"In the summer we used a boat and a specially made recording raft; in the winter, we were on the lake ice," Rainio said.
In addition, the team produced vocal and instrumental sounds at rock art sites and recorded the results.
The team then analyzed the audio recordings in order to describe the acoustic properties at the various rock art sites. Based on the measurements, the researchers also made sound samples and demonstration videos with the help of musicians.
"The audiovisual material related to the new article was made by inviting three artists to studio, to improvise with rock art site echoes that they heard in real time with their own voice or sound making. [The] echoes in this case are digitally made on the basis of our on-site measurements," Rainio said. "Artists produced sounds they felt were suitable, for example, they used archaic vocal techniques, archaic instruments, folk singing styles or reconstruction of a possible prehistoric local language."
The acoustic measurements indicated that at those rock art sites where the water level and environment have remained unchanged, the painted cliffs reflect sound strongly—more strongly than the nearby lakeshore rocks—creating a special auditory "mirror image" effect where reality sounds doubled.
"These reflections generate clearly distinct, single-repeat echoes that accurately reproduce the sounds made—be they speech, drumming, footsteps or boat noises. The echoes reflect off the same smooth rock surfaces where the paintings are, often from exactly the same spot," Rainio said.
The auditory and visual images overlap, which would have merged into one "multisensory experience" for prehistoric people who visited the site by water, the authors proposed, with the cliffs turned into "active" agents.
"Since the source of such echoes appears to be inside the rock, behind the paintings, the echoes make the paintings 'speak' or vocalize, that is, communicate with the person making sound in front of the cliffs," Rainio said.
"So, people heard the painted elks talking and the human figures responding with a voice that resembled their own," Rainio said in a press release.
"In such places, people can have a reciprocal relationship with the environment, in a very tangible way. In prehistoric times, such a relationship was probably related to very special situations," the researcher told Newsweek.
The possibility to communicate reciprocally with the physical environment or the supernatural world may have been a key reason why these cliffs were visited and painted and why offerings were left to them, according to the researchers.
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Reference
Rainio, R., Shpinitskaya, J., Rinkkala, P., Pekkanen, J., Kesäniemi, P., & Ojanen, M. (2024). Reflected encounters at hunter-gatherer rock art sites by the water. Sound Studies, 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/20551940.2024.2419293
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