Prime movers: Considering the "driving forces" in the exploration of Creswell Crags through sound
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2017-04-16

This paper reflects critically on the authors gradual development of an approach used in the exploration of sound within archaeological landscapes. This has played out in both the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire (under the Sonic Horizons of the Mesolithic Project) and at Creswell Crags, Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire (under the SoundTracks Project), and has produced a series of novel research questions and outputs to date. Drawing on existing bodies of knowledge including archaeology, palaeoecology, geology, history, acoustic ecology, sound studies, acoustic engineering, compositional practice and experimental writing, this approach has begged, borrowed and stolen technological, theoretical and scientific approaches in pursuit of its core question: what did this place sound like?
In tracing this development, we articulate the varied and conflated influences on our approach, and argue that, within this context, a search for a "prime mover" or "origin point" for our work is somewhat moot. In doing so, we wish to ultimately question the character of truly interdisciplinary research, and the potential this offered for the generation and communication of different kinds
of knowledge and understanding.
Ben Elliott, University of York, , Jon Hughes, University of York