ICREA Professor Margarita Díaz-Andreu is a prehistoric archaeologist based at the University of Barcelona (Spain). Over the years she has developed several lines of research, including history of archaeology, heritage, gender and nationalism. She has also been working, lecturing and supervising doctoral work on rock art, and she has conducted fieldwork in Western Europe and more recently also in Belize and Mexico. Her more than fifty publications on rock art have focused on the description of new discoveries of rock art sites with engravings, carvings and paintings; interpretation of particular sites and rock art landscapes, rock art management and recording and, in the last decade, archaeoacoustics. The latter is an innovative line of research developed thanks to funding received for projects such as SONART, Palarq and, currently, Artsoundscapes.
Within the Artsoundscapes project she and her team will be undertaking fieldwork in diverse areas of the world in collaboration with local archaeologists. A range of rock art landscapes will be analysed through physical acoustics, psychoacoustics, neuroacoustics and anthropological perspectives. Her research in archaeoacoustics has not only been published in some of the best international journals, but it has also reached the general public through radio interviews and news published on many web pages and in local newspapers.
How Did Ancient Humans Use The Acoustics Of Spaces Like Caves?
What did a vulture-bone flute sound like inside a cave? How about singing inside a tomb? Researchers are bringing ancient sounds back to life.