The Interdisciplinary Role of Archaeoacoustics and Its Applications

In the last two decades, a new discipline called archaeoacoustics has begun to emerge seeking to use modern acoustic methodologies to understand and analyze historical artifacts from a new perspective. The interdisciplinary nature of this subject makes it a fertile ground for archaeologists, anthropologists, psychologists and acousticians. Among the objectives of archaeoacoustics, there are to virtually reconstruct lost atmospheres with the help of virtual reality devices and auralization software, to understand the real form or function of historical sites, to understand how sound can interact with the psychological and spiritual aspects of past civilizations, to study the choices that led to the morphological evolution of theatrical buildings as a function of different acoustics, and so on. It is here considered that the real potential of this discipline is to understand the biunivocal relationship that binds the history and the acoustics of ancient environments. Rediscovering how the humankind in the past have selected or built places for sacred and recreational functions can help to complete our current knowledge on the topic. This article aims to present the different connotations of this discipline and their fields of applications.