Resonances in the Portel "Painted Cave"

Painting by Resonance

Most people don't need expensive experiments by popular authors on TV to show them that different sounds carry differently in enclosed spaces and that resonance plays funny tricks.

But for those who do need convincing, here's something a little more authoritative. This is a map of the cave system at Portel, France, from "La dimension sonore des grottes ornées" (Igor Reznikoff et Michel Dauvois). The red dots mark points of resonance which are associated with cave paintings.

The authors constructed a resonance map showing thrity-five points of resonance; most of the cave paintings are within a metre or so of these points. I've selected only the most spectacular and two less spectacular ones which are also linked with red dots. In black by the title of each location is a list of resonant notes.

Naturally, I've been selective, but it seems to me somewhat interesting that most of the really impressive resonances are associated with the dots, which have been identified by Bradley et al as potentially showing entoptic images which can be construed as "auras of power".

Professor Chris Scarre summarised the paper in Nature (Vol 338, March 1989). He concluded his note "...cave resonance ... would have been all the more striking in the flickering half-light of the simple lamps or tapers used by the original artists. Drums, flutes or whistles may have been used in cave rituals - Bone Flutes have been found at several Palæolithic sites in Europe of roughly the same age as the paintings. The potential of cave resonance would, however, be elicited only by the much greater range of the human voice"

I didn't agree with the last statement when I first read it, and I still don't. But in the interim I've read a great deal of Chris Scarre's work and that of his co-workers in "cognitive archæology". And had great fun not quite proving my point. Here's what happened next...

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