Chacoan

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.” Ancient Acoustic