A team of archaeologists from universities in New York and Arizona have just published a fascinating new study that reports on the impressive auditory range of conch-shell trumpets used by Native Americans who occupied the lands of modern-day New Mexico more than 1,000 years ago.
In an article appearing in the journal Antiquity, the archaeologists present evidence showing that pre-Columbian Pueblo peoples living in the American Southwest in the 9th through 12th centuries relied on these homemade wind instruments to communicate and preserve community connections across relatively long distances. Even if people living in different settlements were out of site, they were seldom out of sound range, thanks to the prodigious acoustical characteristics of these timeless “musical instruments.”
Before Cell Phones and Wi-Fi, There Were Conch-Shell Trumpets
The ancient indigenous residents of northwest New Mexico built a thriving culture that settled in significant numbers in the Chaco Canyon, a 53-square-mile (147.5-sq km) gorge located on the rocky and semi-arid Colorado Plateau. These Native Americans lived in small communities inside the canyon, and in the areas surrounding it as well, each of which was organized around a grand central building known as a great house, which featured several hundred rooms spread out over multiple floors. These great houses were likely used for a mixture of public purposes, related to the administrative,…
