History is all about people across time, from the past to the future. Potentially, every aspect of the human past can be of interest of historians now and in the days that will come. However, depending on the priorities, biases and preconceptions of people who wrote past histories, and on the difficulties in finding decipherable information, many aspects of the human past have been neglected. The necessity to fill these gaps led scholars to the development of disciplines that investigate the sonic environment of the past.
Yet – with some important exceptions – it is mostly the soundscape of spectacular places like prehistoric caves and theatres, or buildings where the elites exerted their power like churches and palaces that are at the centre of the attention. However, many important aspects of past human societies – e.g. communality and confidentiality in settlements – cannot be investigated without a wider approach including the soundscape of non-ritual and non-elite spaces
Based on acoustic surveys on-site and acoustics digital simulations on 3D models derived from terrestrial laser scanning using Odeon Room Acoustics Software, the acoustics of the (re)construction of Building A in relation to early medieval settlements and landscapes in Britain is being investigated within a collaboration between Groundwork South and North Tyneside, Apex Acoustics, and Newcastle University’s McCord Centre for Landscape.
