Sounds of Survey

Every now and then when I’m in the field, I panic about falling behind in my journal reading and letting the ENTIRE DISCIPLINE PASS ME BY.

WHAT?? Archaeological Dialogues has an issue dedicated to ROMANIZATION? I thought about that once, like four years ago! I must… read… now!

WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY has forthcoming volume dedicated to the archaeology of sound? I know people working on that RIGHT NOW and how can I possibly interact with them without being familiar with soon-to-be-published articles. More than that, I’m an audiophile and I need to understand the archaeology of connectors. And I’ve done archaeology of the contemporary world (forthcoming) so I must understand what was albums were found on the floor of a commune where the Grateful Dead once live.

It’s not that it has to happen eventually – like say while I’m on sabbatical – it has to happen now.

So instead of spending a weekend catching up on vital scholarship and remaining relevant to my discipline, I decided to clean up some audio file that I captured over the past few weeks in the field.

On my hike to the cave, I encounter a fairly agitated hawk and this what he (or she) sounded like:

We’ve also had the good fortune of encountering some very vocal goats:

And some excitable frogs (especially at night!):

Finally, you can faintly hear the bells of the church at Kaparelli at the western edge of our survey area:


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