Ancient shells -- found in American West -- may have been used as trumpets, study says

If you were standing on the edge of a canyon in the San Juan Basin of the Colorado Plateau about 1,200 years ago, you may have heard a loud, distant sound reverberating off the rock faces and ricocheting across the desert.

Like the gong of a bell or the deep tone of a ship’s horn, the sound would be a rich single note cutting through the dry air.

This bellow would have been a regular occurrence for the indigenous Pueblo people of the modern-day American Southwest, but it wouldn’t come from the musical instruments we know today.

Instead, the booming noise came with help from the ocean — a conch shell.

In a new study, published May 2 in the journal Antiquity, researchers examine how sound traveled across the desert landscape and how conch shells may have been used as a way to bring communities together.

Chaco Canyon, in modern-day New Mexico, was home to many indigenous people over the millennia, according to the study, including the ancient Pueblo who occupied the region between 850 and 1150 A.D. and left behind massive constructions.

“Twelve massive, sandstone masonry canyon great houses, including Pueblo Bonito, are some of the best-preserved pre-Hispanic buildings in the southwest, with standing walls up to (26 feet) high,” the researchers wrote. “About 200 additional great houses dot the ‘greater Chaco landscape’ beyond Chaco Canyon over an area covering approximately 60,000 square miles.”

The great houses, much larger constructions than personal residences, are central to communities, according to the study, and occupy a geographically center location surrounded by smaller “domestic habitation sites.”

This was important for communication between the great houses, the researchers said, and for establishing a sense of connection between the buildings from miles away.

But while archaeologists might be interested in the landscapes of the American Southwest, the study focused on something different — the soundscapes.

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