Roughly a century before the Inca empire came to power in A.D. 1400, blasts of human-produced thunder may have rumbled off a ridge high in the Andes Mountains.
Excavations at a high-altitude site in Peru called Viejo Sangayaico have revealed how members of a regional farming and herding group, the Chocorvos, constructed this reverberating platform, says archaeologist Kevin Lane of the University of Buenos Aires. Different layers of soil, ash and guano created a floor that absorbed shocks while emitting resonant sounds when people stomped on it. This ceremonial surface worked like a large drum that groups of 20 to 25 people could have played with their feet, Lane reports in the September Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
These findings, from a ridgetop ritual area that faces a nearby mountain peak, provide a rare glimpse of the role played by sound and dance in ancient societies (SN: 11/18/10).
While working at Viejo Sangayaico in 2014, Lane’s team first noticed that one of two open-air platforms located in a ritual area sounded hollow when people walked on it.
2023-08-22 06:00:00
Source from www.sciencenews.org