Call of the conch: Indigenous Americans use sound to organize communities

The soundscape is so impressive that researchers wonder if the communities were built to match the acoustics.

by Mihai Andrei
May 3, 2024

In the 9th century, Chacoan community leaders used trumpets made from conch shells to gather the local community. The shells, gathered from over 1,000 km away, were likely audible to almost all members in a community. In fact, Chacoans might have constructed their communities around being able to hear this sound.



The soundscape of a conch-shell trumpet around a community area. For comparison, a whisper is about 30 dB, normal conversation is about 60 dB. Image credits: Van Dyke et al, 2024.

Between AD 900 and 1150, Chaco Canyon in New Mexico was a flourishing cultural center for Ancestral Puebloans. This area was the heart of a vast network of communities that built imposing houses and stone monuments. The communities were highly organized, with sophisticated road systems connecting them, suggesting a complex societal structure with extensive trade and communication.

“Chaco Canyon is surrounded by over one hundred understudied great house communities”, says lead author Professor Ruth Van Dyke from Binghamton University. “We sought to determine if extra-canyon great house communities demonstrated relationships similar to Chaco Canyon between landscape, community layout, and sound.”

However, some things about these cultures are unclear. Take, for instance, the conch shells.

Conch-shell trumpets have been found in several communities around Chaco Canyon. Today, they still play a role in some ritual practices — even though the nearest source of shells is around 1000 km away. So, they must have been important to be gathered so far away. But how where the trumpets used?

More:
https://www.zmescience.com/science/archaeology/populations-communicated-with-shells-03052024/