Boivin

Sensual, Material, and Technological Understanding: Exploring Prehistoric Soundscapes inSouth IndiaAuthor(s): Nicole Boivin, Adam Brumm, Helen Lewis, Dave Robinson and Ravi KorisettarSource: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jun., 2007), pp.267-294Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4622949 .

Accessed: 06/05/2014 05:49

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserveand extend access to The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 193.205.100.90 on Tue, 6 May 2014 05:50:00 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=rai

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4622949?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Sensual, material, and

technological understanding: exploring prehistoric soundscapes in south India

NICOLE BOIVIN University of Cambridge ADAM BRUMM Australian National University

HELEN LEWIs University College Dublin DAVE RoBINSON University of Bristol

RAVI KORISETTAR Karnatak University

Recent years have witnessed an increased interest within archaeology in the non-visual senses, and

particularly sound. To date, however, most studies have focused on the evidence for musical instruments and the acoustic properties of special structures and spaces, like monuments and caves. This study reports on further evidence for special musical activities at the prehistoric site of

Sanganakallu-Kupgal in south India, but then also moves on to a discussion of the acoustic dimension of more mundane Neolithic technological and productive activities, like flint-knapping, axe-grinding, and crop production. It focuses on the evidence for links between such activities at Sanganakallu-Kupgal, based on shared material, gestural, and acoustic properties, and argues that the hammering of ringing rocks to make music was only one aspect of a wider Southern Neolithic cultural propensity to address technological and ritual requirements by applying stone against stone. The article attempts to bring to recent discussions of the senses an awareness of the materiality of sensory experience, which, despite recent interest in the body, remains marginalized in theoretical accounts.

Five kilometres northeast of the town of Bellary in mideastern Karnataka, south India, lies a concentration of ancient sites focused on a group of large granite hills (Fig. i). Here, many thousands of years ago, prehistoric groups sheltered in simple round huts and rock crevices, hunted and kept animals, and minded some of south India's first crops. They fashioned pots and crude animal figurines out of clay, and tools out of assorted varieties of local stone. They came and went in the course of daily and annual cycles that were synchronized with the seasonal changes of plants, animals, sun, and rain.

Today this same area, now very much part of a global market economy, is the site of a massive, industrialized exercise aimed at extracting many thousands of tons of lucra- tive granite rock from the cluster of hills. Archaeologists working in the area to rescue its prehistoric remains before they are consigned to oblivion cannot but wonder at the

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 13, 267-294 @ Royal Anthropological Institute 2007



268 NICOLE BOIVIN ETAL.

I dv"

r.~~r di~~:

.... ........

- C l ,)mh M ---.l,.,I '1 .

I Ion ic-t ru

:'•:;••i i ? 7 ............ .-::: !!!!!iiiiiiiii i !!•

.....; E 1'F''Lii~iiiiiii!i•:?,::-:,il:!77 i

I Mlometr .Hf:1a.'.hgwd •:::"•i •!ii!ir{!)!

Figure 1. Map showing the Sanganakallu-Kupgal area, and its location within the Indian subcontinent. Grey shaded areas represent dolerite dykes, all of which are found on Hiregudda. Boxed area is enlarged in Figure 2.

transformation. Where once small village hamlets nestled quietly above the surround-

ing plain, today enormous diesel trucks crash up and down the slopes on roads that lie like ever-multiplying scars on the hills. The omnipresent sound of hammering and

machinery is broken only by the rupture of earth-shaking explosions as entire hillsides are brought sliding down.

This picture - of a noisy, jarring present replacing a tranquil past - is a common one. It is also, perhaps, misleading. While it is true that industrial technologies may often be

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 13, 267-294 @ Royal Anthropological Institute zoo7



NICOLE BOIVIN ETAL. 269

associated with increased sound levels (Goldhahn 2002: 39), this does not necessarily mean that pre-industrial periods were quiet. It may be argued that the pasts we create are inevitably quiet and peaceful because we to some degree romanticize them - against the reality of a hectically paced, technology-filled modern life, we contrast an idyllic 'remembered' past when life was simple and tranquil. Also at play, however, is a steadfast Western bias towards the visual (Levin 1993; Ong 1969) that has left us with no

past sounds (or, indeed, other non-visual sensations) to imagine at all. In recent years, however, archaeologists have begun, slowly, to recognize the prob-

lematic influence of a visually biased perspective on their interpretations of the past. In

doing so, they have been very much influenced by an increased interest in the body and the senses within related disciplines like anthropology, history, sociology, and philosophy. Studies in these fields have drawn attention to the way in which the social sciences have often overlooked the body, and particularly its more visceral and sensual aspects (e.g. Connerton 1989; Csordas 1990; Jackson 1989; Lakoff & Johnson 1999; Scheper- Hughes & Lock 1987; Stoller 1989). Much recent work in the social sciences and humanities has thus stressed embodiment and the senses, and has drawn upon phenomenological and experiential approaches to demonstrate the ways in which the body and sensory experience both constitute and are constituted by social and cultural worlds (e.g. Classen 1993; Csordas 1990o; Howes 1991; Jackson 1989; Stoller 1989).

Particular interest has been placed on the importance of sound (e.g. Buckley 1998; Bull & Back 2003; Drobnick 2004; Erlmann 2004). Theorists from numerous fields -

anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, art history, cultural studies, and ethnomusicol-

ogy amongst them - share a common concern with the social nature and meaning of sound and with the significance of cultural engagements with and through the sonic world. They have forwarded the view that sounds are not merely pieces of auditory information to be processed and discarded, but also function as purveyors and indi- cators of cultural memory, heritage, and identity (Moore 2003). The sounds we are nurtured with and which we have imbued with cultural meaning affect the manner in which we perceive and engage with the world and relate socially to others in ways that

generally go unrecognized. This is partly to do with the social complexity of sounds. No sound has an inherent meaning; all sounds are interpreted according to the particular social and cultural backgrounds of the hearers. Flatulence can repel and amuse, yet wind-breaking sounds in some contexts symbolize sexual intercourse or death, and even offer cutting political critiques (Migone 2004).

What is noise for some, therefore, is sound for others. Skog (1998), for example, discusses how in nineteenth-century Java individuals strove to control their emotions and project an inner calm; to be halus, or pure and refined, was to be in tune with the harmony of the universe. The soft chimes of gamelan gongs embodied such divine

concepts. For visiting Europeans, however, gamelan music was merely clamorous and

annoying. Similarly, in nineteenth-century antebellum America, the sounds of industry - locomotives, factories, machines - instilled in Northerners a sense of satisfaction and

pride in their technological progress and modernity (M.M. Smith 2003). In the South, on the other hand, where slaves undertook much of the labour of machines, the sound of industry was merely cacophonous noise: the antithesis of a quiet plantation life.

The often deeply affective emotional qualities of sound imprint themselves on human consciousness and memories. This phenomenon is particularly well demonstrated by Feld's (1982; 1996) research amongst the Kaluli of the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, whose speech and music are shaped by the sounds of the

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 13, 267-294

? Royal Anthropological Institute 2007



270 NICOLE BOIVIN ET AL.

surrounding rainforest. To the Kaluli, there are no discrete sounds to be heard in isolation; all sounds are mixed into an interlocking soundscape that embodies a mul- titude of meanings and deeply felt sentiments (Feld 1982: 3; 1996: ioo). The songs and sounds of rainforest birds, in particular, feature melodies and timbres associated with sadness and grief. Birds are believed to be the spirits or reflections of deceased Kaluli.

During funerals, mourners merge bird sounds with melodic weeping in profoundly moving expressions of sorrow. The highly emotional state instilled by this weeping is the closest Kaluli come to experiencing the transformation of life into death, literally 'becoming a bird' (Feld 1982: 14).

Sound theorists also demonstrate the extent to which sounds can foster a sense of

community and belonging and shape the worldviews of their hearers. The sounds of

village bells in nineteenth-century rural France, for instance, were instrumental in

establishing the cultural and historical patterns of village life in this era (Corbin 2003; see also M.M. Smith 2003). Bell peals regulated people's movements throughout the

day. They comforted and assuaged villagers because bells were believed to cleanse and

purify the air with their sanctity, driving off demons, witches, and other aerial calami- ties and summoning angels from heaven. Bell sounds also had a key historical role to

play in reducing mobility and creating a sense of territoriality among French villagers. Indeed, to wander outside the auditory range of the village tower bell was to risk not

hearing its warning alarms in times of danger, or to miss the announcements for

religious services. Bell sounds, therefore, did more than instil in people a sense of time and of place; they 'shaped the habituds of a community or, if you will, its culture of the senses. They served to anchor localism, imparting depth to the desire for rootedness and offering the peace of near, well-defined horizons' (Corbin 2003: 118-19).

The above examples suggest that the bias towards the ocular places serious limita- tions on our capacity to unravel the meanings of many forms of social behaviour, past and present (Bull & Back 2003). To know the world through vision is fundamentally different from knowing the world through sound. Yet even within auditory culture there are preconceptions as to what constitutes sound and what constitutes noise. The cultural stress in Western thought is on reading and hearing text and verbal speech - distrust of non-verbal sounds (i.e. hollers, whoops, hubbubs) has a long historical

pedigree (B.R. Smith 2003). For many of us, the myriad non-verbal sounds of everyday life - the clacking of keyboards, rattle of refrigerators, and intermittent throb of com-

puter hard drives - constitute a fundamental part of our sonic environment. However, we are often unaware of, or fail to reflect upon, the meanings of these sounds and the effects they have on our lives. The visual dominates how we experience reality, and when we choose to hear we often do so selectively and with much cultural baggage.

Materiality and the 'critique of representation' These various investigations of sound may be understood as part of a wider 'critique of representation' within the humanities and social sciences. This critique has taken issue with the over-emphasis on language, order, and the abstract resulting from the post- war linguistic turn in the social sciences and humanities (Jackson 1996; Stoller 1989). None the less, despite a recognition that the ideal has often been privileged over the material, not only recently but throughout the history of Western thought, many of these studies have continued to ignore the material world, and the role played by environments, artefacts, and technologies in embodied and sensory experience.






Archaeology, perhaps more than any other field, holds the potential to resolve this bias. Not only have archaeologists begun recently to pay attention to sensory experience (e.g. Boivin & Owoc 2004; Devereux 2ool; Hamilakis, Pluciennik & Tarlow 2002; Jones & MacGregor 2002; Ouzman 2001; Rainbird 2002a; 2002b), but they have, more importantly, a long history of addressing the material world. Archaeologists have given a great deal of consideration to the role of material culture in human society, and while they, too, have taken a linguistic turn, and stressed semiotic, symbolic, and post-structuralist approaches (e.g. Hodder 1991; Tilley 199o), more recent theoretical discussions have

begun to point out the serious problems inherent in applying language-based approaches to the material world (e.g. Boivin 2oo4b; Olsen 2003). Recent interest in the senses in archaeology may be seen as part of a growing recognition that linguistic approaches fail to address what is in fact most salient about the material world: its

materiality. Thus, while they have so far made only minor inroads into the project, archaeologists are in an excellent position to develop more holistic theories of human

society that take into account not only human bodies and senses, but also the physicality of a material environment that is deeply implicated in most if not all human projects.

This article offers an attempt to consider the senses in relation not only to cultural

concepts and social identities, but also to technologies and material environments. It addresses several senses beyond vision, but focuses in particular on sound, not only because available evidence points in this direction, but also because it appears to have been a particularly notable aspect of the sensory environment in question. The article follows on from an initial foray into the issue of sound in relation to rock art in the area described at the outset of this discussion, known as Sanganakallu-Kupgal (Boivin 2004c). In the interim, other interesting discoveries relating to the acoustics of sites at

Sanganakallu-Kupgal have been made, and much discussion concerning the role of sound in prehistoric life has taken place amongst the authors.

The findings and interpretations discussed here constitute part of the ongoing research that is being carried out by the Sanganakallu-Kupgal Archaeological Project (Boivin, Korisettar & Fuller 2005; Fuller, Boivin & Korisettar in press; Fuller, Korisettar & Venkatasbbaiah 2001). The article addresses new findings relating to sound features and their associated chronology, including newly discovered rock gongs in the

Sanganakallu-Kupgal area. It thus picks up on a discussion of rock gongs and musical sound that took place on the pages of this journal from the 1950s to the 1970s (Fagg 1956; Paddayya 1976; Vaughan 1962), but, in keeping with theoretical developments since then, also moves beyond gongs and music to a discussion of more general aspects of sound, as well other aspects of sensory experience in south Indian prehistory. Ultimately, it argues that sound - however obvious its importance at Sanganakallu- Kupgal - was, like the visible realm, only one component of a sensorily rich and

synaesthetic experience that drew on various senses. It was part of a sensorily experienced and materially constituted world in which bodily engagement, technological activity, cultural knowledge, and social identity were enmeshed into a seamless whole.

The archaeological sequence at Sanganakallu-Kupgal The Sanganakallu-Kupgal area comprises a series of granitic hills that outcrop from a relatively flat surrounding plain in the district of Bellary in the southern Deccan

plateau (Fig. 1). The large, boulder-strewn hills constitute a dramatic feature in the landscape, and have attracted human activity since at least the Mesolithic period (Ansari & Nagaraja Rao 1969; Foote 1916; Sankalia 1969; Subbarao 1948; see Table 1). In


? Royal Anthropological Institute 200oo7




particular, the hill known as Hiregudda (also Kupgal Hill or Peacock Hill) appears to have become an important centre for quarrying and technological activities associated with the production and probable distribution of edge-ground axes in the late Neolithic and possibly Early Iron Age periods' (Boivin et al. 2005; Brumm, Boivin &

Fullagar 2006; Brumm, Boivin, Korisettar, Koshy & Whittaker 2007; Foote 1916). This

phase of more intensive axe production (approximately 1400-1200 BC) is preceded by an earlier Neolithic phase, at the beginning of which still enigmatic, and probably ritualized, dung-burning activities resulted in the creation of a number of ashmounds on and around the hills (from approximately 1900-1700oo BC; Allchin 1963; Boivin 2oo4a; Mujumdar & Rajaguru 1966). It is followed by, and indeed probably partially overlaps with, an Iron Age phase in which these earlier ash 'monuments' (Boivin 2oo4a: 250) were replaced by monuments of stone (1200oo-loo AD). The latter are part of a tradition of megalith-building in south India (Sundara 1975) that saw the creation of a number of stone circles and standing stone monuments on the plain surrounding the granitic hills of Sanganakallu-Kupgal. Most of the prehistoric activities outlined above involved

relatively intensive occupation of the granite hills, though the probability that this

occupation was often cyclical (probably seasonal) and sometimes intermittent seems

high (Fuller et al. 2001). This would have involved crop production as well as pastoral

Table 1. Preliminary chronological model of main periods of prehistoric occupation at Sanganakallu-Kupgal (see Fuller et al. in press for details).

Period Occupation and activities in Sanganakallu-Kupgal area

??* Intermittent site occupation on hilltop and plain. High mobility Mesolithic and intensive hunting and gathering economy. Creation of rock

1900 paintings at some sites (?).

1900oo Adoption of an increasingly settled lifestyle and establishment of Neolithic At hilltop 'village' sites. Cultivation of millets and pulses, along

with wheat and barley, accompanied by cattle and sheep/goat pastoralism. Creation of ashmounds. Intensive stone on stone activities begin (grinding, cupule creation). Beginnings of

1700 petroglyph/bruising and rock gong creation(?).

1700 Ashmound creation ceases. Village occupation continues. Neolithic Bt

1400

1400 Intensification of craft production and trade activity. Specialized Megalithic stone axe workshops and intensive quarrying and axe Transition production at Hiregudda. Megalithic pottery and burials begin.

1200

1200 All hilltop villages abandoned. Settlement moves onto plain. Classic Intensive megalith production on plain. Iron introduced c.8oo Megalithic/Early BC. Stone-on-stone activities less intensive. Iron Age

?)?t

* Local dates for the beginning and end of the sequence remain unclear. t Neolithic 'A' and 'B' are local designations and may be susceptible to change with further investigations and dating.





activities that seem to have been culturally stressed. Subsequently, at some point in the

Early Iron Age, occupation moved largely off the hills and onto the surrounding plain, leaving relatively pristine prehistoric sites (see especially Foote 1916) until the advent of the modern quarrying activities described at the outset of this article.

The Sanganakallu-Kupgal soundscape Present-day commercial quarrying activities interfere with attempts to reconstruct and understand prehistoric soundscapes in the Sanganakallu-Kupgal area.'Ringing rocks' or 'rock gongs' (which emit bell-like sounds when struck; see Boivin 2004c; Devereux 2001; Fagg 1956)2 survive in places, but others have undoubtedly been destroyed in the course of the extensive quarrying. The near continuous sound of quarrying activities produced by humans, machines, and explosions furthermore seriously confounds attempts to understand the sound properties of prehistoric cultural and natural landscapes. None the

less,just as still undisturbed tracts of terraced land and consistent viewsheds allow insights into prehistoric landscapes at Sanganakallu-Kupgal, surviving ringing rocks and other features, as well as holidays that interrupt the sound of quarrying, enable recognition of occasional echoes of past soundscapes. For example, during moments of relative quiet in the Sanganakallu-Kupgal hills an interesting characteristic of the local soundscape became clear. At dusk, after the quarry labourers had deserted the hills, it was possible to hear, carried clearly through the air, the intimate sounds of everyday life from the small

farming villages out on the plain below. Remarkably, though the settlements lie at a distance of a kilometre or sometimes more from the hills, individual voices and even, sometimes, the sounds of particular domestic activities could be made out. While the

capacity of the Deccan landscape to enable views over substantial distances has been noted, however (see references in Boivin 2004a), this equally significant propensity for

conveying sounds over long distances has garnered little attention. It likely relates to the reflection of sound waves offthe bare granite surfaces of the hills, which would be expected to result in an intensification of sound (see Cross & Watson 2oo6 for a description of this effect). Excavation has revealed that many Neolithic remains at Sanganakallu-Kupgal sit

directly on top of exposed bedrock surfaces, indicating that areas of granite exposure may have been even more substantial during the Neolithic period.

None the less, central Deccan soundscapes have not gone entirely unreported in the

archaeological literature, thanks to the presence of ringing rocks of the type mentioned above. These constitute another important feature of the granite hills of the central Deccan (Boivin 2oo04c; Paddayya 1976). The same bare stone and sparse vegetation that are likely conducive to carrying sound over long distances have also resulted in the creation of rock gongs that, when struck with stones or other materials, emit remarkable ringing tones. Ringing rocks marked with multiple cupules evincing their use as

gongs are found on many hills in the central Deccan, amongst both granite and dolerite

outcrops. Both types of stone appear to have sonic properties, and the ringing sounds are produced when the rocks are supported by other rocks rather than solid earth, and are hence free to vibrate (see also Devereux 2001; Fagg 1956). Hitting the rocks in different places and with different sizes of stones produces a variety of tones, and enables the creation of'rock music' (Boivin 2oo4c).

New ringing rock discoveries at Sanganakallu-Kupgal While ringing rocks discovered in the Sanganakallu-Kupgal area during preliminary survey have already been reported (Boivin 2004c), subsequent more detailed survey has

]ournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 13, 267-294 ? Royal Anthropological Institute 2007




not only enabled these to be properly mapped, but has more importantly led to the discovery of a number of very interesting additional ringing rock features (see Fig. 2). Like the previously described examples, the various new examples have all been found on Hiregudda (Kupgal Hill), and include some additional ringing rocks from the large dolerite dyke at which the earlier examples were observed (see Figs 3 and 4). Of particular note is a large, flat-topped ringing rock with patinated cupules that appears to have been artificially raised up onto smaller boulders, perhaps to produce a more effective ringing sound (Ringing Rock 5 in Fig. 2; see also Figs 4 and 5). The stone is situated part-way down the enormous dolerite dyke upon which much of the rock art of Hiregudda, and indeed Sanganakallu-Kupgal as a whole, is concentrated. It occupies a flat platform that appears to have been artificially cleared, and to have been the focus of particularly intensive rock art production (see Figs 4 and 6). Depictions of bulls and anthropomorphs, probably representing a range of chronological periods, are common in the immediate area.

Of equal, if not greater, interest has been the discovery, subsequent to the 2002 season, of ringing rocks beyond the confines of the above-mentioned dolerite dyke. One of these is a unique granite example situated near the summit of the south peak of Hiregudda (an area known as Area B), atop a distinctive granite pillar (Ringing Rock 8 in Fig. 2). Careful climbing part-way up the pillar leads to a small flat area where a flat-topped, triangular boulder sits nestled beneath the face of the rock (Fig. 7). The

dykerit dyk

A.e-

•,

\?a '? Reservoir

4 > ,7

W

7/-: I~:: 2 /z i~

Figure 2. Map showing locations of new ringing rock sites at Hiregudda and related archaeological areas. Area A is an occupation and lithic production area and represents the most intensively occupied site on Hiregudda. Ringing Rocks 1-6 are located in an area of concentrated rock art on the main dyke. Ringing Rock 7 represents two ringing rocks found in association with a stone circle in Area D, while Ringing Rock 8 is located on a granite pillar in Area B.




NICOLE BOIVIN ET AL. 275

Figure 3. Example of new ringing rock discovered on the main dolerite dyke at Hiregudda. The cupule alignment has been produced through the repeated percussion of the stone at particular points.

...........

. . ... .... ... oxso

:4 ..... ...... . .... .......

.. ... .. .......... . . ........ .... ... ... ........ .... .... ...

Figure 4. Cleared platform on the main dolerite dyke at Hiregudda (Locus 1). The large, flat-topped rock raised up onto small boulders on the platform is a ringing rock (Ringing Rock s in Fig. 2). The large bruising of a crane (from Panel 7011) can be seen behind the ringing rock, to the right.

boulder appears to have been produced through natural weathering of the granite stone, as a result of the same process of weathering along joints that has produced the distinctive boulder formations of the Deccan plateau granite tors. It is marked along its visible edges with substantial cupules that have clearly been produced by repeated banging of the rock to create ringing sounds. The area around the pillar has seen substantial modification through the creation of a system of very small terraces that bear evidence of Neolithic stone tool production. A number of the dolerite boulders that appear naturally and in terrace walls in this area bear petroglyphs (engravings rather than the usual bruisings), mostly of highly stylized bulls (Fig. 8). The entire area is immediately adjacent to a small dolerite dyke that appears to have been heavily quarried during the Neolithic period (see Boivin et al. 2005).




276 NICOLE BOIVlN ET AL.

....

i i .... .......... i

ii~iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii~ i~iiiiiiKii mwiii !!~ • ,:: ::•:•:•:•:::.•:::,:,•M .0:

iiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!iii~iR . M.iiK

Figure 5. Close up of ringing rock shown in Figure 4. Patinated cupules are visible.

The granite pillar rock gong in Area B at Hiregudda is not the only ringing rock discovered beyond the area of concentrated rock art identified in the 2002 season on

Hiregudda's largest dolerite dyke. At the base of an upland valley running between the two main peaks of Hiregudda (in what is known as Area D), two additional ringing rocks were discovered, this time in association with a stone circle (grouped together as

Ringing Rock 7 in Fig. 2; see also Fig. 9). The two rocks are similar in size and shape, and appear to have been carried down from the large dolerite dyke (which runs along the ridge above) where the earlier ringing rock discoveries were made. Both stones are

shaped rather like angular bananas - they are long and roughly triangular in cross- section (see Fig. lo) - and are situated in a rather symmetrical arrangement at the edges of the stone circle (see Fig. 9). The southeast stone (Figs loa and c) bears nine visible

cupules, and still rings when struck. The northeast stone (Figs lob and d) is in contrast embedded within the ground and broken transversely at one end, and probably for these reasons does not ring. Its cupules (Fig. 11), however, are patinated, indicating that it was last used as a gong some time ago. While the purpose of the stone circle





10 cm

Figure 6. Interlinked bull motif found on a boulder at the edge of the cleared platform shown in

Figure 4 (element from Panel 7038, Locus 1).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... ...... .... ... . . . .... . . ...........

........... ......... ...

..... . . . . . . .

... .. . ...... ... .. ... ...

.... .. . ...

Figure 7. Ringing Rock 8 in Figure 2. The upper face of the boulder measures approximately 0.8 x 0.9 x 0.9 m, while its height is approximately 30 cm. The size of the cupules is generally 10o cm wide and up to 5 cm deep.

unfortunately remains rather enigmatic at the present time, artefacts, including several infant jar burials, suggest that Area D is Neolithic, and radiocarbon samples from a rare well-stratified context in Area D have also given late Neolithic dates (1400-1200 BC). While we remain unclear as regards the nature of the activities carried out in this area, it is relatively certain that its context is late prehistoric.





10cm

Figure 8. Stylized bull motifs from Area B. Top left: Panel 7072. Top right: Panel 7056. Bottom: Panel 7060.

Chronology and interpretation of the ringing rocks at Hiregudda The additional ringing rocks discovered on Hiregudda subsequent to the 2002 season have been important for a number of reasons. One crucial one is that the discoveries have provided additional evidence to substantiate the claim that the rock gongs indicate

prehistoric sound- or music-making activities. Both rock art and rock gongs are

exceedingly difficult to pin down chronologically, and the evidence for the perseverance of rock art creation and rock gong use at Hiregudda up to the present day has only confounded the dating issue. With both the rock art and rock gongs, it has been clear that we are dealing with a palimpsest of activities in which later marks are directly associated with, and, particularly in the case of rock gongs, actually efface, earlier ones. Now, however, a number of clearly patinated rock gong cupules have been identified, implying that rock gong ringing is not just a modern phenomenon. While patination rates are dependent on a range of factors and hence not easily quantifiable (e.g. Watchman 1998), it is unlikely, given the specific mineralogical composition of the Hiregudda granite, that full patination of such deeply worn grooves would take less than a few centuries (Nick Drake, pers. comm.). The association of a partially buried ringing rock bearing patinated grooves with what is certainly a prehistoric (and probably late Neolithic or early Iron Age) stone circle in HGD Area D provides compelling evidence to suggest that, in some cases at least, rock gongs are on the order of several thousands of years old. While the rock art with which the earlier finds were associated (Boivin 2004c) provides a less reliable chronological indicator, the finds of stone artefacts and prehistoric ceramics that characterize the areas where several of the new rock

gongs are located permit a more secure chronological assignment. This type of association appears to be found not only at Hiregudda, but also in the Shorapur Doab in the north part of Karnataka, where rock gong sites are also associated with Neolithic and Iron Age artefacts and sites (Paddayya 1976).

Beyond substantiating initial interpretations regarding the date of the ringing rocks at Hiregudda, the new discoveries also provide evidence for the more widespread occurrence of rock gongs. While rock gongs were initially found only on the main dolerite dyke, in close association with rock art, they have now been identified at sites off the dyke. Ringing rocks thus occur in a more diverse set of contexts than previously thought, suggesting that the activities that they represent were a more ubiquitous

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 13, 267-294 ? Royal Anthropological Institute 2007




, %

Trench 3 & 3aK ci IiD ci

S 1401614017

with medium cupules O ith medium ocupules

14000 1 1co0 p Granite boulder with. small cupules

main structural stones

Sringing rocks C

granite

dolerite A 2.5m 6CP

Figure 9. Partly intact circular stone structure visible on the surface in Area D. The ringing rocks are hatched ([4001] and [40051).

feature of prehistoric life than previously supposed. None the less, it is also worth noting that all but one of the rock gongs discovered at Hiregudda so far cluster around an upland valley, and may therefore have been related to each other through a linked set of activities. It is possible that the valley functioned as a kind of prehistoric'auditorium' that enabled sounds to be amplified at particular locations (see Lawson, Scarre, Cross & Hills 1998), and that ringing rocks in different areas were 'played' at the same time on certain occasions to create a more spectacular acoustic experience. This type of interpretation is of course highly speculative, but does suggest that more systematic analysis of the Hiregudda ringing rocks by a sound specialist would potentially prove highly rewarding.

While the increased diversity of rock gong contexts might suggest a greater ubiquity of ringing rock practices than initially supposed, it is worth emphasizing that no ringing rocks have yet been discovered at the main sites of prehistoric occupation at





(a) (c)

(b)

(d)

VIA Qj"0

•!••!i0: :i t

Figure 10. Illustrations and photos of ringing rocks from Area D: (a) and (c) depict the southeast stone, while (b) and (d) show the northeast one. Arrow points north; double-arrowed line is 1 metre scale.

ik7

-7.7

--i~ ~?~~ii~::-::7 7': ::

Figure 11. Patinated cupule on northeast ringing rock.





Sanganakallu-Kupgal. The hilltop plateaus of Sannarachamma, Choudammagudda, and Hiregudda (Area A) (Figs 1 and 2) that have yielded the richest evidence for prehistoric habitation have been more systematically surveyed than other areas, and yet no ringing rocks have thus far been located at these sites. Thus, despite the evidence of a somewhat more widespread distribution after inclusion of the new examples, rock gongs appear to be confined to areas beyond those occupied by main settlements. They are not distant from settlements, but are not part of them either. The notion that some of them at least may relate to ritual activities like life-cycle ceremonies, as suggested in the original discussion of the rock gongs (Boivin 2004c), thus continues to present a plausible interpretative avenue for at least some of the activities associated with these ringing rocks.

The new evidence also continues to hint at male associations (Boivin 2004c). As indicated in the original discussion, the rock art on the main dyke at Hiregudda, where the first rock gongs were found, is dominated by ithyphallic figures, and, in particular, bull motifs. As discussed above, the new ringing rock site in Area B also contains rock art, and this is even more overwhelmingly dominated by depictions of bulls. The latter site is also adjacent to an area where stone-quarrying and lithic production activities were carried out. If, as suggested in the preliminary report, we assume that it was predominantly men who engaged in the physically intensive labour of quarrying stone and who roamed with cattle away from the settlements on daily or seasonal migration rounds, then the rock art motifs and artefact production associations of a number of the gong sites do suggest a concern with male activities (Boivin 2004c). If we assume that women were more closely associated with domestic settlements, then the fact that the most clearly domestic areas on the hills do not, after several seasons of intensive survey and recording, appear to contain any rock gongs might also be taken as evidence for something of a male association. The argument made in the preliminary report for an association of the Hiregudda rock gongs with male-orientated rituals thus remains plausible based on the new evidence. The striking of boulders beyond the periphery of settlement areas to create engravings, bruisings, and ringing or musical sounds may have constituted a part, for example, of male initiation rituals. That these would have taken place beyond the visual but within the aural range of settlement areas would have enabled the communication of new statuses while perhaps simultaneously maintaining the secrecy and segregation from females necessary for initiation to take place. Such activities would likely have constituted only part of a longer initiation sequence that involved other activities further afield.

Archaeologists obviously rely heavily on anthropological information about non- industrialized societies to offer more plausible interpretations of the remains of simple prehistoric foraging and farming societies. Unfortunately, very few societies actively using rock gongs have been described in any detail by anthropologists, although a mid-twentieth-century account published in this journal does seem to offer support for the kind of interpretation proposed here. As described in that article (Vaughan 1962), ringing rocks used by the Marghi of Nigeria during the period of ethnographic study described were closely linked to initiation and marriage rituals that also take place just beyond, but within hearing distance of, nearby villages. Rock shelters with ringing rocks were visited by male initiates prior to marriage, and ceremonies involving the ringing of rock gongs, singing of songs, and painting of shelter walls were carried out to mark the transition to adulthood (Vaughan 1962). These shelters were located at the bases of large mountains, and are close enough to settlement sites that '[f]rom the






village below, the gongs and voices, coming as they do from three shelters, blend into an

awe-inspiring sound' (Vaughan 1962: 50). Vaughan argued that the paintings in the shelters served in part to provide tangible evidence of the beginnings of the emergence of an adult, while the ringing rock sounds signalled 'all within the village that this

important transition has taken place' (1962: 51). Like many of the Hiregudda rock art

sites, Marghi rock paintings were concerned with adult, masculine themes, and rock

gongs were only supposed to be struck at the time of these male initiation and pre- marriage rituals (Vaughan 1962: 52). Such rituals were associated with distinctive cos- tumes and behaviour, including songs, dancing, and the striking of the gongs, and it is

tempting in this regard to associate the cleared platform on the dolerite dyke at

Hiregudda (Fig. 4) in particular with this kind of activity.

Stone against stone: other acoustic activities at Sanganakallu-Kupgal While the rock gongs at Hiregudda bring the issue of sound in prehistory to the

foreground, they are not the only insights we have into the ancient acoustic world of

Sanganakallu-Kupgal. It was noted earlier that the sonic landscape of the central Deccan granitic hills is conducive to the intensification of sounds, and it seems likely that auditory stimuli beyond the rock gongs had an important role to play in prehistoric lifeworlds at Sanganakallu-Kupgal. The potential contribution of voices and song to the auditory environment was touched upon above, but it is of course difficult to do more than speculate about their role, given that they leave no physical traces. There are, however, a number of very loud prehistoric activities that have left physical traces in the central Deccan and these are activities that involved contact between stones. While the most obvious of these is perhaps stone-quarrying and -knapping, for which Hiregudda provides so far the most abundant evidence for the whole of the Southern Neolithic, a

range of other prehistoric stone-mediated processes are also indicated today by the

profusion of grinding hollows that are found distributed across granite hills bearing Neolithic remains in south India.

These grinding hollows are found on exposed bedrock and variously sized boulders and rocks, and they are a repeated and characteristic feature of later prehistoric sites in the central Deccan (see also Fuller et al. 2001). They correlate with large quantities of grinding implements in many of the Neolithic and Megalithic period levels at these sites. The grinding hollows occur in various shapes and sizes, and undoubtedly result from a range of activities. Many are the outcome of crop-processing activities, which are particularly linked to larger categories of hollows, most of which are circular or ovoid in plan (Fuller et al. 2oo1; see Fig. 12). Other, elongated U- and V-shaped channel

grooves, associated at times with cupules, are argued to relate to stone axe grinding (see Fig. 13). The grinding between stones of additional substances, such as pigments, medi- cines, animal bone, vitrified ash (from ashmounds), and potsherds (for grog) may also be hypothesized. Small cupules with no apparent 'practical' function (see element

[4000] in Fig. 9, and Fig. 14) are also ubiquitous, and are perhaps the result of activities having a primarily symbolic, aesthetic, or ritual impetus. What all of these hollows have in common is that as stone banged or rubbed against stone in the course of their creation, it would have generated a great deal of noise. Furthermore, the production of the petroglyphs that are also found in such proliferation at some Neolithic sites, and particularly Hiregudda, would have similarly involved the creation of forceful contacts between stones and, depending on the degree of conspicuousness sought, a particular auditory output.






. ......

. : ..:: -r: : .• : " : : .. ... : ;:::: ':•: •

. . ..._ ":_:-:-_:::_::-:-:::- :_-:::-_:.--::: i•:. .: . ....... ..

::::

... ... -•.:• ::?r:-.: ........ .... .....

-i-i:i:i:i- --:i-i-:s---aii~iii:i•

--iiiiiiii-~ iii~iiiiiii iiii

iiiiii:iiii:• iiiiiiiii:•!!i:::•:i

i iiiiiliii

• ::i:::.iii::•iiii::e :o.:

ii:ii-:i_ ::::

.......

i -ii~iiiiiiiii~,i

Figure 12. Grinding hollow resulting from crop-processing activities.

Aws:

.. ? MY: ::::Or

Figure 13. Grinding hollows related to stone axe grinding at Hiregudda.





(a) (b) (c)

10cm

O0 b p o10oe *

*@

41**b

lmcm * i s

** *.'..&

Figure 14. Cupules in various arrangements (all from Area A, Hiregudda): (a) randomly organized (Panel 7185); (b) patterned (element from Panel 7180); and (c) patterned (element from Panel 7182).

Within the ethnographic and archaeological literature, there is much evidence to

suggest that the sound of these stone-on-stone activities did not go unnoticed, and indeed, at least in some cases, may have been considered a relevant or primary intended outcome of their performance. While it is more difficult to substantiate the argument that petroglyph production itself may have involved, in addition to its obvious visual

aspect, a deliberate attempt to create particular sounds (except where it is found on

ringing rocks), a performative element to some cupule production at Hiregudda seems clear. For example, one group of cupule marks found in Area A traces the line of a

quartz vein in the granite bedrock. Quartz is cross-culturally believed to possess magical or supernatural power (Darvill 2002; Whitley, Dorn, Simon, Rechtman & Whitley 1999: 233-5) because of a property called triboluminescence that can cause it to

glow when struck (Saunders 2004:136; Whitley et al. 1999: 236). Triboluminescence can be demonstrated most vividly by vigorously rubbing together two transparent quartz rock crystals in a dark room, which will be seen to result in a cold luminescent glow. However, as our informal experiments indicate, the phenomenon may also be produced (admittedly somewhat less dramatically from a visual perspective) by rubbing, abrading, striking, hitting, hammering, tapping, or otherwise impacting the surface of a wide variety of quartz and crystalline rocks under low-light conditions. Given these observations, it may be that, at Sanganakallu-Kupgal, the pounding of stone against stone that created these cupules had the intended aim of generating this supernatural light - that is, that the process that was carried out was at least as important as the resultant cupule marks that were produced. The arrangement of other cupules at

Sanganakallu-Kupgal further supports this interpretation. Cupules are frequently arranged in random clusters that do not appear to depict anything or even form a

pattern (see Fig. 14a and [4000] in Fig. 9). Even when cupules appear in more patterned arrangements, these often appear unfinished (see Fig. 14c), suggesting that the creation of a particular finished design was not the primary intended aim.

These various observations suggest the need to look beyond final form, and to consider more closely the performative and gestural aspects of cupule creation, includ-

ing sound production. The ethnographic literature reinforces this impression. While the creation of cupules not resulting from particular subsistence and technological





activities has only occasionally been ethnographically documented, various authors have reported on an Aboriginal increase ceremony that involved the pounding of a boulder and formation of cupule-like hollows in central Australia (Flood 1997: 146-7; Mountford 1976: 213; Taqon, Fullager, Ouzman & Mulvaney 1997: 960). Taqon et al. in

particular draw attention to the role of pounding rock surfaces in bringing about the release of spiritual, creative 'power' amongst Aboriginal Australians (Taqon et al. 1997: 960), and hence highlight the importance of actual acts of cupule creation in Aboriginal Australian society. Similar stone percussion activities feature in rituals in many other

parts of the world, and rain-making rituals in particular often feature the banging of stones (and sometimes wood) (Duncan-Kemp 1952: 63; Lanning 1958; Williams 1929: 387-88). In southwest Queensland, Australia, for example, Rain-men in the early 19oos beat ceremonial stones to bring rain, in a process that could be expected to produce a

physical mark or marks that were none the less not the primary intended outcome of this activity. The aural component of this activity is stressed in Duncan-Kemp's description: '[A]bove the pandemonium sounded the softer, irregular but unmistak- able, "clop, clop, boom" of the ceremonial stones beaten by the Rain-men as they worked overtime to produce the rain, due in a few days' time' (Duncan-Kemp 1952: 63). Similarly, Lanning (1958) documented the use of a large granite rock in rain-making rites amongst Hima pastoralists in Uganda in the mid-195os. These rites involved the

giving of offerings and were accompanied by singing, dancing, and the beating of the rock, which when struck produced resonant, bell-like tones.

These examples emphasize the fact that cupule marks on rocks, even if they cannot be linked to narrowly defined 'utilitarian' activities, need not be understood only as

passive objects of visual contemplation. As shown, cupule marks on stones in ethno-

graphically documented cases have often been produced as the outcome of activities that were themselves as important as, or even more important than, the marks themselves. Cupule marks traditionally fall under the purview of rock art specialists, and indeed were initially studied this way at Sanganakallu-Kupgal. We have subsequently recognized, however, that their form may be little more than the vestige or trace of a

past performance that was of culturally equal or greater significance to Southern Neolithic peoples. Acoustic and performative dimensions of cupule production need to be taken into account. We would suggest that cupules were produced as part of culturally and socially mediated performances that had an important sensory dimension. This likely involved not just a visual component, but an aural one as well.

It is not just more arcane practices that might have involved an important sound dimension, however. Various ethnographic and archaeological studies have also emphasized the auditory components of a number of more obviously functional activities. Rainbird (2002a; 2002b), for example, has drawn attention to the aural dimension of sakau (kava) processing in traditional societies in the South Pacific (Rainbird 2002a; 2002b). Pounding of sakau is a ritualized process carried out in a community house, and is apparently done in unison according to particular rhythms. These are directed by a leader, who stands on a platform calling out tempos that change over the course of the process. The pounding is done on basalt slabs, and creates clear, bell-like tones that resonate through the forest, communicating the message that preparations for specific communal, but restricted, ritual events have begun. Individual communities have their own sakau pounding rhythms, and tempos are reported to change depending on the composition of the gathering. The presence of head chiefs leads to different pounding tempos than that of petty chiefs, for example.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 13, 267-294 ? Royal Anthropological Institute 2007




Also touched upon in the archaeological and ethnographic literature has been the acoustic component of stone tool production activities. Fagg, for example, makes the

interesting (if gender-biased) observation that 'men who depended for life itself on their ability to fashion implements by flaking must have been conscious of the musical

quality of stone' (Fagg 1956: 18). The Cambridge-based Lithoacoustics Project is cur-

rently exploring precisely this possibility, by carrying out experimental and archaeo-

logical studies aimed at testing the hypothesis that our early ancestors might have used the tools they knew best - stone and the processes of working stone to produce artefacts - for sound production (Cross, Zubrow & Cowan 2002). The acoustic dimension of lithic production has often been remarked upon in the literature. Ruhe, for example, describes the 'clink, clink, clink of the hammer and tinkle, tinkle, tinkle of falling flint'

during gunflint manufacture in Brandon, England, and refers to the sound as 'unique and memorable' and even musical (Ruhe 1995: 6). The gunflint-knappers themselves were clearly conscious of the musical quality of flint, and Skertchly recorded that: 'A

good flaker works so fast that by the time a flake falls into the tub a fresh one is struck off, as they say "the sound of the hammer and the falling flake should be heard

together"' (Skertchly 1879: 31). In early 1900s southwest Queensland, Duncan-Kemp observed Aboriginal women incorporating the rhythmic tapping sound generated by pecking stone bolas into 'corroborees', or musical performances (Duncan-Kemp 1952: 27).3 The unique acoustic effect produced apparently made the manufacture of these hammerdressed stone tools rather 'an interesting matter to the onlooker' (Duncan- Kemp 1952: 27).

These ethnographic examples indicate the social, cultural, and experiential importance of the acoustic properties of various 'mundane' and 'utilitarian' technological activities across a range of societies worldwide. Given the apparent sound-intensifying properties of the central Deccan granitic terrain, as well as the deliberate sound production evidenced by the ringing rocks found at sites there, it therefore seems reason- able to suggest that the acoustic dimension of the many prehistoric activities involving contact between stones did not go unnoticed in Neolithic south India either. The Neolithic soundscape would have included a range of sounds produced by a whole

variety of day-to-day and seasonal activities involving the banging, pecking, and grinding of stone, and it is hard to imagine that these auditory cues from the environment were not picked up just like visual ones, and used to make sense of the world. It seems

likely that Neolithic peoples would have learned to read the sounds echoing across the hills as signs, and to develop them as deliberate forms of communication, both with other humans and also perhaps with more supernatural beings. While it is impossible to hear these prehistoric sounds today, the hollows scattered across bedrock at Neolithic sites attest to their presence during a distant period.

Interestingly, the grinding hollows found at Sanganakallu-Kupgal, like the rock gong hollows, are often grouped tightly together, suggesting that the activities that led to their creation were frequently communal, and would thus have been conducive to the generation of a great deal of noise and the deliberate (or in some cases unconscious) synchronization or combination of individual tempos. There is also strong evidence to suggest that stone-knapping was carried out communally in specific areas, and may have involved an important social and ritual dimension (Brumm et al. 2006; 2007). Stone-knapping, pecking, and grinding activities all have a rhythmic component that is likely to have been foregrounded in such communal, ritualized production activities. While other stone-against-stone activities may have been less communal, it is clear that






their acoustic component would have prevented them from being entirely private matters. Stone-against-stone activities announce themselves across the landscape, and draw people into particular social relationships. For example, as Rainbird (2002a: 96-7) has also argued, sound would likely have played an important role in making people feel included or excluded. Neolithic individuals at Sanganakallu-Kupgal may have felt content and linked to others while engaging in communal grinding or knapping activities, or awed and mystified while hearing esoteric ritual activities being performed by individuals or small exclusive groups beyond the confines of the domestic settlement. Thus while sounds would have served as 'signs' in some instances, they would also likely have featured as important aspects of the embodied experience of identity and understanding. Sound is not just semiotic but also experiential.

Embodied and technological understanding Investigation of Neolithic soundscapes at Sanganakallu-Kupgal and other Southern Neolithic sites in the preceding sections has drawn attention to linkages between a diverse array of prehistoric activities. These connections are the result not only of a shared acoustic element, but.also a shared application of stone object to stone substrate. In many cases, this application has resulted in particular 'marks' on the landscape that, as diverse as they are, may none the less be grouped into the general category of 'grinding hollows' based on the presence of certain shared physical features. Other patterns further accentuate these proposed linkages. The shared focus on dolerite stone draws links between edge-ground axe production, ringing rocks, and the petroglyphs that are primarily focused on this medium at Sanganakallu-Kupgal (Boivin 2oo4c), for example. Analysis of the spatial patterning of grinding hollows meanwhile indicates that cupules are often associated with larger hollows believed to have resulted from the processing of plant foods by pounding and grinding (Fig. 15). The numerous links that archaeologists perceive between different Neolithic stone-against-stone activities suggest that they may in fact have been linked by Neolithic peoples as well. Shared properties and a common materiality may have helped conceptually connect technological, subsistence, and ritual activities that archaeologists often consider as separate.

The ethnographic and archaeological literature offers support for this interpretation. Stone-against-stone activities amongst the Marghi of Nigeria, for example, are

a g

Figure 15. Example of cupules associated with a grinding hollow (from Panel 7180, Area A, Hiregudda). The grinding hollow is the grey shaded area on the right. Light grey shaded features are earliest in the sequence, while black shaded features are latest.





illustrative. The Marghi, whose rock gongs were discussed above, often use the hammer stones employed for grinding grain or seeds to strike gongs (Vaughan 1962: 50), thus

drawing links between grinding and hammering, and between ritual and subsistence activities. Links between the grinding of plant foods and ringing of rock gongs are further accentuated by the grinding of sesame at gong sites, a practice that has led to the creation of numerous grinding hollows at many rock gong sites (Vaughan 1962). Ground sesame is traditionally presented to the newly aligned couple as part of marriage ceremonies, and is considered to symbolize fertility. Rock gong rituals in at least some areas of northern Nigeria are furthermore timed to coincide with the beginning of the growing season, a practice that emphasizes their linkage with fertility (Vaughan 1962). Ultimately, then, material and technological similarities are 'played with' by the

Marghi in order to draw conceptual links between different activities, and ritually access the power manifest in certain natural processes and technological practices. Parallels in the practice of pounding ringing rocks and seeds, and in the physical appearance of the resulting hollows formed by both activities, offer rich metaphorical possibilities that are highlighted during ritual practices.

Of course the parallels drawn derive not only from shared materials and forms, but also from shared bodily practices (Bourdieu 1977; 1990; Leroi-Gourhan 1964; 1965; Mauss 1979), highlighting the impossibility of segregating sensory modalities. Hammering rock gongs demands bodily movements similar to those required in

pounding seeds, and this furthermore accentuates the conceptual and metaphorical linkages between these distinct types of activity. During the Neolithic in south India, the diverse activities that involved similar gestures, like banging, pounding, and pecking stone, may have intensified conceptual linkages established on the basis of other aspects like sound, material engagement, and resulting material form. Bodily movements fre-

quently link technological activities of very different types (Mauss 1979). In the Andes, for example, Sillar (1996) notes that the preparation of clay for potting involves the same processes of grinding and pounding as much food preparation. Indeed Sillar highlights the diffusion of technological practices across different realms, and emphasizes the tendency in human thought to solve current problems by drawing upon areas of prior experience (1996: 265; also Ingold 2000). This 'bricolage' approach to technology (Sillar 1996: 265) is illustrated, for example, in the use of similar drying techniques to process potatoes, clay for potting, and dead people in the Andes. Sillar furthermore argues that during the Inca period, practices associated with the mummification of the dead were transferred to the realm of food storage, thus also enabling meanings of

regeneration and reciprocity with the ancestors to be drawn upon by an Inca state keen to justify its extraction of produce from the local population. Sillar emphasizes the

philosophical aspects of technology, and the way they not only imbue techniques with

culturally specific meanings, but also influence what people will consider an 'appropriate' technology to apply to a particular problem.

Interestingly, Sillar's examples highlight the importance of grinding as a meaningful practice in the Andes. Linguistic usage of terms for grinding demonstrates that it is considered an appropriate technique to apply to both food and people, and is understood as a way to make them productive. Grinding was thus widely used not only in processing food and clay, but also in warfare, which was dependent on crushing blows and projectiles rather than blades (Sillar 1996: 267). A similar type of explanation likely lies behind the laborious axe-making techniques ofAsmat stoneworkers in coastal Irian Jaya (see Konrad, Goo & Konrad 1995). This group does not flake stones, but rather






hammerdresses or pecks raw stone into axes, and the Asmat consider themselves with

great pride to be a 'pecking' people. While an extremely time-consuming and in some senses 'inefficient' axe-making technique, pecking is none the less highly valued, and

closely linked to Asmat social and cultural identity. The Asmat argue that, unlike their

neighbours, who are only able to use stone types they are familiar with (presumably those that fracture conchoidally), their own stoneworkers are able to meet the challenge of new material types. Given enough time and patience - a quality on which the Asmat seem to pride themselves - an Asmat stoneworker has the ability to create an axe from almost any type of stone.

In the central Deccan, the profusion of hollows that mark the landscapes of Neolithic sites may suggest a similar kind of philosophically linked technological ori- entation. Grinding and pounding may have been practices that were widely applied because they were considered appropriate, and fitted within an overall understanding of the world and/or a particular cultural identity. They may have been applied not only in ways that are familiar to us, but also in culturally specific ways that we might not

expect. The quantity and diversity of grinding grooves on Southern Neolithic sites

certainly suggest that they were created during the course of a great many activities, not all of which our own technological philosophy might lead us to expect to involve the

banging of stone against stone. Neolithic soundscapes therefore need to be understood as implicated in a deliberate, culturally specific transformation of the world, and as the

product of particular ideas about the right way to do things. Sounds would not only have had specific meanings depending on the particular stone percussion or grinding activities that produced them, but also more generally would have signified, embodied, and communicated a particular worldview that would have given them heightened significance and emotional impact. The creation of sound through the banging of stone

against stone would also have involved the creation of particular bodily gestures and the engagement with particular aspects of the material world. Thus, in order to understand the role of sound in Southern Neolithic society, we need to take into account not

only other senses, but also the interaction of mind-body and matter. A more sensorily aware approach drives us to consider how life in the Neolithic

might have been experienced by the people then inhabiting south India. Phenomeno- logical and experience-orientated studies are of course more problematic for disap- peared past peoples than for living, breathing modern-day ones, but materiality, a shared feature of both living and dead peoples, offers a potential if still challenging opportunity for archaeologists today to gain a sense of past experience. The dry, bouldery landscape of the southern Deccan, little changed since the Neolithic (Asouti, Fuller & Korisettar 2005; Fuller & Korisettar 2004), is a distinctive one that undoubtedly led to distinctive sensory experiences, and perhaps a particular emphasis on sound as a modality of experience.4 This material environment is also very much implicated in the lifestyle adopted by Neolithic people, orientating them towards stone-based tech-

nologies and rituals and an emphasis on pastoralism. While Neolithic subsistence, technological, and ritual activities were not determined by the material environment of the central Deccan, neither were they culturally constructed out of thin air, and the distinctive flavour of the Southern Neolithic can be at least partially attributed to the distinctive materiality of this landscape. Materiality thus challenges the current vogue for hard constructionism in anthropology and archaeology, demanding a place for a physical world that both constrains and enables (Boivin 2004b) in theoretical accounts of human society.


? Royal Anthropological Institute 200oo7




Technology and material culture are therefore not just relevant to specialists focus-

ing on specific issues like consumerism or the history of technology, nor are they simply ways of expressing ideas and concepts that somehow already pre-exist them. Studies of material culture overlap in many significant ways with studies of the senses in the humanities and social sciences, although the links between the two areas of interest have yet to be adequately investigated. The senses, as both culturally informed and

bodily-dependent phenomena, offer a way to bridge entrenched dichotomies between ideal and material, and subject and object, by drawing together what have been con- ceived of as an internal mind and an external world. Consideration of the senses draws us into not just a consideration of the body, but also its habits, gestures, and engagement with a material world. It leads us to a better understanding of how concepts are created and societies reproduced. It provides us with a little insight into how and why societies create distinctive cosmologies and why different people do things in the

particular ways that they do. Consideration of the senses also, as has been shown here, helps break down the

divide between the sacred and the profane that is often drawn by Western scholars. While certain sounds and gestures were undoubtedly unique to ritual activities in the Southern Neolithic, many of them were clearly shared with the sphere of everyday subsistence and production activities. 'Playing' rock gongs, grinding millet, creating rock art, and quarrying stone were all activities that engaged people with the material substance of stone in similar ways. As we have argued, this likely allowed metaphors, gestures, and practices to cross-cut ritual and everyday spheres, and to create a cos-

mology or understanding of the world that was not just mental but also material and

bodily.

Conclusion: studies of sound in India and beyond Ringing rocks constitute a fascinating, and underdeveloped, subject of study in south India. While barely touched upon in the academic literature, brief but regular references in guidebooks and other public media suggest that they are a recurrent feature of the south Indian soundscape, and occur in a wide range of contexts, from prehistoric rock art sites to historical period temples. Yet, as the foregoing discussion illustrates, the archaeology of sound extends beyond the narrow study of music and musical instruments in the past. While examples of ancient musical instruments may be most striking to us today, the sounds they made represent only a portion of the full spectrum of past sounds, and only a very particular aspect of ancient soundscapes. When we move

beyond a visually biased perspective on landscapes, we awaken awareness of the role of other senses in the past, and of the place of acoustics outside the narrow sphere of deliberate music-making activities. At prehistoric Sanganakallu-Kupgal, and other Southern Neolithic sites, sound would have been an important dimension of a very diverse array of activities, many of them involving the application of stone to stone. Neolithic soundscapes would have been rich with sound, and would likely have featured alongside visual landscapes in orientating people in the world, fashioning identities, and negotiating social transactions and transformations. Evidence for the widespread use of grinding, pecking, and hammering activities, which resulted in the production of a remarkable profusion of grinding hollows in and around Neolithic sites in the central Deccan, suggests that the hammering of ringing rocks to make music was only one aspect of a wider Southern Neolithic cultural propensity to address technological and ritual requirements by applying stone against stone. Given that such






activities would not only have involved shared sound production, but also would have had in common particular embodied actions and material outcomes, it is not unlikely that they were implicated in a culturally specific material and technological philosophy that saw them as the 'correct' way to do things. Soundscapes were not divorced from

everyday life, or a feature only of specific times and places, but rather part of a deeply embodied and sensual experience and understanding of the world characterized by the

coming together of mind, matter, and body. As difficult as it may sometimes be to move

beyond a consideration of obvious acoustic features like rock gongs and other musical instruments, such a departure is critical to any project seeking to understand more fully the place of sound in the lives of past peoples.

NOTES The Sanganakallu-Kupgal Project is funded by the British Academy. Additional grants have also been

provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Prehistoric Society, Karnatak University, and the Society for South Asian Studies. We are grateful to Paul Devereux for useful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript, Ian Cross for several enlightening discussions on acoustic effects, Anna Montag for document translation, and Glenn Bowman for helpful advice during the revision process. The authors would also like to acknowledge the important contribution of other members of the Sanganakallu-Kupgal project team to the research findings discussed here.

1 In south India, the Neolithic period is followed directly by the Iron Age. The later Neolithic is sometimes referred to as a Chalcolithic period due to the increased appearance of copper items. These remain relatively infrequent, however, and the absence of an intervening Bronze Age is very clear.

2 The terms'ringing rock' and'rock gong' are used interchangeably in this article, as they are in the general literature.

3 Hammerdressing or 'pecking' stone tools like edge-ground axes made from tough volcanic rock is a

technically simple but time-consuming process involving the repetitive striking or tapping of the unshaped stone piece with a light-weight hammer-stone. Repetitive low-impact percussion has the effect of removing small amounts of stone detritus with each blow; gradual attrition 'pecks' the tool into shape (Dickson 1981).

4 For a discussion of how particular environments may lead to particular sensory experiences, see Howes & Classen (1991).

REFERENCES

ALLCHIN, FR. 1963. Neolithic cattle-keepers of south India. Cambridge: University Press. ANSARI, Z.D. & M.S. NAGARAJA RAO 1969. Excavation at Sanganakallu, 1964-65 (Early Neolithic House at

Bellary). Poona: Deccan College. AsouTI, E., D.Q. FULLER & R. KORISETTAR 2005. Vegetation context and wood exploitation in the Southern

Neolithic: preliminary evidence from wood charcoals. In Journal of South Asian Archaeology 2oo3. Proceed-

ings of the European Association for South Asian Archaeology Conference, Bonn, Germany, 7th-nth July 2003 (eds) U. Franke-Vogt & J. Weisshaar, 336-40. Aachen: Linden Soft.

BoIvIN, N. 2004a. Landscape and cosmology in the south Indian Neolithic: new perspectives on the Deccan ashmounds. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 14, 235-57.

2o004b. Mind over matter? Collapsing the mind-matter dichotomy in material culture studies. In

Rethinking materiality: the engagement of mind with the material world (eds) E. DeMarrais, C. Gosden & C. Renfrew, 63-71. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. - 2004c. Rock art and rock music: petroglyphs of the south Indian Neolithic. Antiquity 78, 38-53.

, R. KORISETTAR & D. FULLER 2005. Further research on the Southern Neolithic and the ashmound tradition: the Sanganakallu-Kupgal Archaeological Research Project Interim Report. Journal of Interdisci-

plinary Studies in History and Archaeology 2, 63-89. - & M.A. Owoc (eds) 2004. Soils, stones and symbols: cultural perceptions of the mineral world. London:

UCL Press. BOURDIEU, P. 1977. Outline of a theory of practice (trans. R. Nice). Cambridge: University Press.

- 199o. The logic of practice (trans. R. Nice). Cambridge: Polity. BRUMM, A., N. BoIvIN & R. FULLAGAR 2006. Signs of life: engraved stone artefacts from Neolithic south

India. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 16, 165-90.





, -, R. KORISETTAR, J. KOSHY & P. WHITTAKER 2007. Stone axe technology in Neolithic south India: evidence from the Sanganakallu-Kupgal area, mid-eastern Karnataka. Asian Perspectives 46, 65-95.

BUCKLEY, A. (ed.) 1998. Hearing the past: essays in historical ethnomusicology and the archaeology of sound.

Liege: Etudes et Recherches Archeologiques de L'Universite de Liege. BULL, M. & L. BACK (eds) 2003. The auditory culture reader. Oxford: Berg. CLASSEN, C. 1993. Worlds of senses: exploring senses in history and across cultures. London: Routledge. CONNERTON, P. 1989. How societies remember. Cambridge: University Press. CORBIN, A. 2003. The auditory markers of the village. In The auditory culture reader (eds) M. Bull & L. Back,

117-25. Oxford: Berg. CROss, I. & A. WATSON 2006. Acoustics and the human experience of socially organised sound. In Acoustics,

space and intentionality: identifying intentionality in the ancient use of acoustic spaces and structures (eds) C. Scarre & G. Lawson, 107-16. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

-, E. ZUBROW & F. COWAN 2002. Musical behaviours and the archaeological record: a preliminary

study. In Experimental archaeology (British Archaeological Reports International Series 1035), (ed.) J. Mathieu, 25-34.

CSORDAS, T.J. 1990. Embodiment as a paradigm for anthropology. Ethos 18, 5-47. DARVILL, T. 2002. White on blonde: quartz pebbles and the use of quartz at Neolithic monuments in the Isle

of Man and beyond. In Colouring the past (eds) A. Jones & G. MacGregor, 73-91. Oxford: Berg. DEVEREUX, P. 2001. Stone age soundtracks: the acoustic archaeology of ancient sites. London: Vega. DICKSON, F.P. 1981. Australian stone hatchets: a study in design and dynamics. Sydney: Academic Press. DROBNICK, J. (ed.) 2004. Aural cultures. Banff: YYZ Books. DUNCAN-KEMP, A.M. 1952. Where strange paths go down. Brisbane: W.R. Smith & Paterson Pty. ERLMANN, V. (ed.) 2004. Hearing cultures: essays on sound, listening, and modernity. Oxford: Berg. FAGG, B. 1956. The discovery of multiple rock gongs in Nigeria. Man 56, 17-18.

FELD, S. 1982. Sound and sentiment: birds, weeping, poetics, and song in Kaluli expression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

- 1996. Waterfalls of song: an acoustemology of place resounding in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea. In Senses of place (eds) S. Feld & K.H. Basso, 91-135. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.

FLOOD, J. 1997. Rock art of the Dreamtime: images of ancient Australia. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.

FOOTE, R.B. 1916. The Foote Collection ofIndian Prehistoric and ProtohistoricAntiquities: notes on their ages and distribution. Madras: Government Museum.

FULLER, D.Q., N. BOIVIN & R. KORISETTAR in press. Dating the Neolithic of South India: new radiometric evidence for key economic, social and ritual transformations. Antiquity.

& R. KORISETTAR 2004. The vegetational context of early agriculture in south India. Man and Environment 29, 7-27.

- , - & P.C. VENKATASUBBAIAH, 2001. Southern Neolithic cultivation systems: a reconstruction

based on archaeobotanical evidence. South Asian Studies 17, 171-87. GOLDHAHN, J. 2002. Roaring rocks: an audio-visual perspective on hunter-gatherer engravings in northern

Sweden and Scandinavia. Norwegian Archaeological Review 35, 29-61. HAMILAKIS, Y., M. PLUCIENNIK & S. TARLOW (eds) 2002. Thinking through the body: archaeologies of corpo-

reality. New York: Kluwer Plenum. HODDER, I. 1991. Reading the past. Cambridge: University Press.

HowEs, D. (ed.) 1991. The varieties of sensory experience: a sourcebook for the anthropology of the senses. Toronto: University Press.

I & C. CLASSEN 1991. Sounding sensory profiles. In The varieties of sensory experience: a sourcebook in the anthropology of the senses (ed.) D. Howes, 257-88. Toronto: University Press.

INGOLD, T. 2000. The perception of the environment: essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. London: Routledge. JACKSON, M. 1989. Paths towards a clearing: radical empiricism and ethnographic inquiry. Bloomington:

Indiana University Press.

(- ed.) 1996. Things as they are: new directions in phenomenological anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press. JONES, A. & G. MACGREGOR (eds) 2002. Colouring the past. Oxford: Berg. KONRAD, G., P. Goo & U. KONRAD 1995. Asmat, Mythen und Rituale Inspiration. Venice: Erizzo Editrice.

LAKOFF, G. & M. JOHNSON 1999. Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to Western

thought. New York: Basic Books.

LANNING, E.C. 1958. A ringing rock associated with rain-making, Uganda. South African Archaeological Bulletin 51: 8, 83-4.





LAWSON, G., C. SCARRE, I. CROSS & C. HILLS 1998. Mounds, megaliths, music and mind: some thoughts on the acoustical properties and purposes of archaeological spaces. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 15, 111-34.

LEROI-GOURHAN, A. 1964. La geste et la parole I - technique et langage. Paris: Albin Michel. - 1965. La geste et la parole II - la memoire et les rythmes. Paris: Albin Michel.

LEVIN, D.M. (ed.) 1993. Modernity and the hegemony of vision. Berkeley: University of California Press. MAuSS, M. 1979. Body techniques. In Sociology and psychology (trans. B. Brewster), M. Mauss, 95-123. London:

Routledge & Kegan Paul. MIGONE, C. 2004. Flatus vocis: somatic winds. In Aural cultures (ed.) J. Drobnick, 83-95. Banff: YYZ Books. MOORE, P. 2003. Sectarian sound and cultural identity in Northern Ireland. In The auditory culture reader

(ed.) M. Bull & L. Back, 265-79. Oxford: Berg. MOUNTFORD, C.P. 1976. Nomads of the Australian desert. Adelaide: Rigby. MUJUMDAR, G.G. & S.N. RAJAGURU 1966. Ashmound excavations at Kupgal. Poona: Deccan College. OLSEN, B. 2003. Material culture after text: re-membering things. Norwegian Archaeological Review 36, 87-104. ONG, W.J. 1969. World as view and world as event. American Anthropologist 71, 634-47. OUZMAN, S. 2001. Seeing is deceiving: rock art and the non-visual. World Archaeology 33, 237-56. PADDAYYA, K. 1976. Cup-marks in the Shorapur Doab (South India). Man (N.S.) 2, 35-8. RAINBIRD, P. 2002a. Making sense of petroglyphs: the sound of rock art. In Inscribed landscapes: marking and

making place (eds) B. David & M. Wilson, 93-103. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 2 002b. Marking the body, marking the land - body as history, land as history: tattooing and engraving

in Oceania. In Thinking through the body: archaeologies of corporeality (eds) Y. Hamilakis, M. Pluciennik & S. Tarlow, 233-47. New York: Plenum.

RUHE, B. 1995. Making gunflints in Brandon, England. Chips 7: 2, 4-9. SANKALIA, H.D. 1969. Mesolithic and pre-Mesolithic industries from the excavations at Sanganakallu, Bellary.

Poona: Deccan College. SAUNDERS, N. 2004. The cosmic earth: materiality and mineralogy in the Americas. In Soils, stones and

symbols: cultural perceptions of the mineral world (eds) N. Boivin & M.A. Owoc, 123-41. London: UCL Press. SCHEPER-HUGHES, N. & M.M. LOCK 1987. The mindful body: a prolegomenon to future work in medical

anthropology. Medical Anthropology Quarterly (N.S.) 1, 6-41. SILLAR, B. 1996. The dead and the drying: techniques of transforming people and things in the Andes. Journal

of Material Culture 1, 259-89. SKERTCHLY, S.B.J. 1879. On the manufacture of gun-flints, the methods of excavating for flint, the age of

Palaeolithic man, and the connexion between Neolithic art and the gun-flint trade. London: Memoir of the British Geological Society.

SKOG, I. 1998. North Borneo gongs and the Javanese gamelan: a new historical perspective. In Hearing the

past: essays in historical ethnomusicology and the archaeology of sound (ed.) A. Buckley, 65-101. Liege: etudes et Recherches Arch6ologiques de L'Universite de Libge.

SMITH, B.R. 2003. Turning into London c. 16oo. In The auditory culture reader (eds) M. Bull & L. Back, 127-35. Oxford: Berg.

SMITH, M.M. 2003. Listening to the heard worlds of antebellum America. In The auditory culture reader (ed.) M. Bull & L. Back, 137-63. Oxford: Berg.

STOLLER, P. 1989. The taste of ethnographic things: the senses in anthropology. Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press. SUBBARAO, B. 1948. Stone age cultures of Bellary. Poona: Deccan College. SUNDARA, A. 1975. The early chamber tombs of South India: a study of the iron age megalithic monuments of

northern Karnataka. Delhi: University Publishers.

TACON, P.S.C., R. FULLAGER, S. OUZMAN & K. MULVANEY 1997. Cupule engravings from Jinmium-Granilpi (northern Australia) and beyond: exploration of a widespread and enigmatic class of rock markings. Antiquity 71, 942-65.

TILLEY, C. (ed.) 199o. Reading material culture. Oxford: Blackwell.

VAUGHAN, J.A., Jr, 1962. Rock paintings and rock gongs among the Marghi of Nigeria. Man 62, 49-52. WATCHMAN, A. 1998. Some observations on the radiocarbon and cosmogenic isotope dating of petroglyphs,

Foz C6a, Portugal. Antiquity 72, 197-2oo. WHITLEY, D.S., R.I. DORN, J.M. SIMON, R. RECHTMAN & T.K. WHITLEY 1999. Sally's rockshelter and the

archaeology of the Vision Quest. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9, 221-47. WILLIAMS, F.E. 1929. Rain-making on the River Morehead. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

of Great Britain and Ireland 59, 379-97.





Comprehension sensuelle, materielle et technologique : une exploration du paysage sonore prehistorique en Inde du Sud

Resume

On observe depuis quelques annees un interet croissant des archeologues pour les sens non visuels, et en

particulier pour les sons. La plupart des etudes se sont cependant consacrees jusqu'ici '

la recherche de traces d'instruments de musique et aux proprietes acoustiques de structures et d'espaces particuliers, monuments ou grottes par exemple. L'auteur evoque ici d'autres indices d'activites musicales particulieres sur le site prehistorique de Sanganakallu-Kupgal, dans le Sud de l'Inde, avant de s'interesser a la dimension

acoustique d'activites technologiques productives plus terre-a-terre du Neolithique comme la decoupe des silex, le polissage des haches et le moissonnage des r&coltes. Elle se concentre sur les indices de liens entre ces activites h Sanganakallu-Kupgal, a partir de leurs proprietes materielles, gestuelles et sonores com- munes, et avance l'id'e que dans le Sud neolithique, la percussion de roches sonores pour faire de la musique n'dtait que l'un des aspects d'une propension culturelle plus large A r"pondre aux imperatifs technologiques et rituels par le contact de la pierre sur la pierre. L'article tente d'introduire dans les recentes discussions sur les sens une apprehension de la materialite de l'experience sensorielle qui est encore negligee dans les textes theoriques, malgre l'interet recent accorde au corps.

Nicole Boivin is a Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of

Cambridge. She co-directs the Sanganakallu-Kupgal Project with Ravi Korisettar, Professor and Head of the

Department of Ancient History and Archaeology, Karnatak University. Adam Brumm (Australian National

University), Helen Lewis (University College Dublin), and David Robinson (University of Bristol) are also members of the Sanganakallu-Kupgal Project, which was initiated in 2002 to undertake collaborative field- work on the prehistory of south India.

Nicole Boivin, Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, The Henry Wellcome Building, University of

Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge CB2 1QH, UK. [email protected]




Date post:	02-May-2017
Category:	Documents
Upload:	oudemia333
View:	214 times
Download:	0 times

Boivin

Documents