A horned shaman-like figure on the rocks at Keltavuori. Credit: Photo by Julia Shpinitskaya.

Rock art proliferates in Finland. There are dozens of sites where paintings on sheer and very smooth cliff faces next to lakes exist, and those images often show people, animals and boats. In some instances they even show drummers. At a number of sites, such as Keltavuori, horned anthropomorphs and other half-human, half-animal figures have been interpreted as shamans by rock art researchers.

New research out of the University of Helsinki has shone a light on the acoustics of these sites exploring the possibility the rocks held a spiritual importance for the people who painted the images. Indeed, if you are standing in the correct place, it can actually sound as though the rock itself is talking to you and the images point to how the sites were viewed in prehistoric times.

ScienceVega spoke to the University of Helsinki ethnomusicologist Julia Shpinitskaya to hear more about rock art acoustics and possible existence of the Shaman of Keltavuori. 

ScienceVega: When did you first hear about the paintings at Keltavuori?

JS: Rock art sites in Finland are well-documented and Keltavuori is one of the best-known sites. About five years ago this rock was on our list of known rock art sites when we were searching for suitable places to study. That meant that we were searching for places with vertical smooth surfaces and original water levels that had not dropped since prehistoric times. Keltavuori was one of those places.

Another reason for our interest was also practical because this site is quite easy to reach. It’s a short distance to row and there is a cabin in the forest nearby that we could rent for a longer stay.

Another interesting thing to note is that Keltavuori has quite particular paintings. One is of a human figure with a snake in its hand and another one which is considered to be something like a horned shaman. It is a human figure with a horned head that rock art researchers hypothetically interpret as a shaman. We do not know if shamans existed at the time, and this conclusion is based on the later ethnohistorical material. Finally there is one more visible human figure and some faded images that have not preserved well over time.

When we first got to the site, we saw three vipers in the first two days, and we joked that this could be connected to the paintings, given the man with the snake. A couple of years later a discovery was made in the wetlands of southwest Finland, where they found something that they think could be a shaman’s staff in the shape of a full-size snake. This is probably what we can see in the painting. This artefact is over 4,000 years old, so it can be dated back to prehistoric times when this site was being visited.

Painted rock of Keltavuori in Southeastern Finland. Credit: Photo by Julia Shpinitskaya.

ScienceVega: Are these sites that have rock art with an acoustic element, or are they acoustic sites where there happens to be rock art?

JS: There is archaeoacoustic research on this from the 1980s. The first was in prehistoric caves in France carried out by Professor Iégor Reznikoff, the pioneer of archaeoacoustics, who related how the caves with the paintings were acoustically very good. Later he reported that he had found very strong echoes at some rock painting sites in Finland.

The idea of our group’s research, which started in 2013, was to make investigations about these rock art sites in Finland, specifically whether they have good acoustics or not. Eventually we explored 37 sites.

ScienceVega: So the previous research made you think there might be something acoustically special about Keltavuori?

JS: We thought the site was acoustically interesting because of the structure of the rock and its appearance. Painted rocks usually have smooth surfaces tilted towards the water, and this is quite common for the rock art sites in Finland.

These kinds of surfaces generate very accurate and distinct echoes or sound reflections which are different from the echoes you can hear from the surroundings; they are an exact copy of the sound which you produce in front of them. This illusory sound source appears to be just behind the rock wall surface. If we compare this to irregular rock surfaces and echoes that come from the surroundings, those are quieter and distorted.

Another important point as to why we thought the acoustics were good is that the water level has remained unchanged since prehistoric times, which is not always the case. In the majority of Finnish sites, water levels have dropped significantly, in some places up to 12m. Water level guarantees the acoustics have remained the same as when the site was in use in prehistoric times.

The rest is down to our testing. Our acoustic specialist, Riita Rainio, visited the site first and made the first acoustic tests where she found that the rock face was very reflective. After that we continued working on the site, taking acoustic measurements and experimenting with acoustics.

Digital 3D reconstruction of the painted rock of Siliävuori in Southeastern Finland. Credit: Screenshot: Paavo Rinkkala & Jami Pekkanen.

ScienceVega: What specific research have you undertaken at Keltavuori?

JS: First of all we recorded impulse response at the site. To do this, we record an excitation signal and the reflections that rocks generate in response. For the signal we chose the sound of a 40cm balloon burst because it gives us a constant impulse for measurements. The sound is about the same every time you burst it at every site, which is what we needed; that the sound is an exact constant.

We soon discovered that the acoustic measurements at Keltavuori had remarkable acoustic properties, and the site quickly became one of our favourites. We have visited it several times in both winter and summer to have different weather conditions and to get more accurate measurements.

We did a lot of experiments there: we tested the site with vocal sounds and drumming, and we recorded the results. In 2019 we organised an entire fieldwork trip for three days. Usually it takes two people to take the measurements, but we invited Professor Reznikoff to test the rocks with his own voice method that he has developed to evoke the acoustic response.

We stayed for three days and made not only audio recordings, but also filmed the work. Usually that isn’t possible because the two people that are needed for measurements are not able to use any other equipment. It was a bit unusual in that we were only going to use these recordings for ourselves as a kind of video diary, but later we decided to put it together in a short documentary film called Echocatcher. It showed how we were exploring the rock, finding the best acoustic spots and then performing the vocal tests at the best acoustic spots. The film was shown at the British Forum for Ethnomusicology in 2023. It accompanied our paper and can also be seen on our YouTube channel.

ScienceVega: What exactly are vocal methods?

JS: Vocal tests are always interesting, anthropologically speaking, because this is when you can discover what kind of vocalisations are the best to use and, based on that, hypothesise what might have happened long in the past.

ScienceVega: Yodelling is a well-known example of a localised vocal technique, but have you been able to ‘rediscover’ vocal calls from prehistoric Finland?

JS: Yes. For example, we have been using ethnohistorical research to understand what kind of vocalisations Indigenous people have been using in front of the rock. Here in Finland, we have the Sámi population, the Indigenous people of northern Europe. They don’t use the prehistoric rock art sites, but in their history they have used, very similar in appearance, sacred sites and lakeside vertical cliffs. From historical records and ethnographic sources we know they were doing what we call ‘joiking’ which is a form of chanting unique to the Sámi. It is not right to say it is similar to yodelling, but it is similarly distinct and can remind you of the kinds of techniques used.

Siliävuori site on the map. Credit: Jani Närhi.

ScienceVega: Would the Sámi people have been in Keltavuori 5,000 years ago?

JS: We don’t know the people, the hunter-gatherer societies, that might have been using these prehistoric sites, like Keltavuori. But when the Sámi people appeared in Fennoscandia, the sites were still visited. It might be the case that there is a connection or a link and, probably, even some kind of heritage.

ScienceVega: What do the acoustics tell us about the original artists who created these this rock art?

JS: That’s an interesting question. The rocks are very reflective surfaces, so these sites provide a very particular sensory environment and according to our understanding these places could transform the sensory experience of reality for the visitors as they create a full illusion of sound coming from the rock. These rocks are like portals to the mirrored world. On a quiet day, for example, when you visit the site, you can see the mirror wall; the whole cliff reflected in the lake, and you can also hear mirrored sounds from the rock.

When approaching the site, prehistoric visitors will have heard the voices of invisible beings living behind the rock surface with whom they could communicate. This illusory sound source appeared to come from just inside the rock, or from a spot just behind the rock surface, or from the painted figures.

So we think the anthropomorphic or zoomorphic figures on the rock were animated by the visitors’ own voices and they appeared to talk back like a personal double because they spoke or sang with their own voice.

Rock art researchers connect these sites to ritual activities because of something that they interpret as shaman figures and because of the offerings made at the sites that were discovered in archaeological excavations. We think ritual sounds made by the visitors was influenced by the acoustic properties of these places. They may have been very sensitive to sound and moved through different acoustic zones, changing their voices or even vocal techniques.

When we were researching the sites, we discovered several zones that affect sound performance in different ways. For example, the more distant zone is approximately from up to 200m to 50m away. This is where the echo response is very slow and where loud sounds, with pauses, might be used to hear the rock response. We can’t say, of course, what kind of sounds they used in the prehistoric times, but possibly something that corresponds to calls or screams.

Then closer, from 50m to approximately 20m to 17m, the echo travels faster, so the delay is smaller. This means that every sound coming from singing and talking is doubled almost immediately, as if a spirit or invisible being was singing or talking together with you. A loud voice is not needed anymore. You would only need small changes in your vocalisation or melody to hear it.

Less than 17m from the rock there is a third zone where the echo response is even faster, less than 0.1 seconds. That means the two sounds, the sound source and the reflection, practically blend together, so you don’t hear it anymore. Your voice is fused with the voice of the spirit. This sensory experience provides a perception of an invisible being communicating with you, then coming closer and closer until you become one and the same with this being.

Valklampi from Siliävuori hill in Hamina, Finland. Credit: Outdoors Finland Etelä from Finland, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

ScienceVega: To these ancient people, who perhaps might have been very superstitious, you’re working on the basis that the rock is spiritual to them because of its acoustic properties?

JS: Most probably. It is a valid question because the same smooth surfaces that are good for sound reflections are also good for paintings. We cannot say which came first, but the echoes are so strong at the site, there is no reason to think they didn’t hear them.

According to psychoacoustic research and psychoacoustic criteria, the people using this site should have been aware of the echoes.

ScienceVega: Because our world is so noisy now, is our hearing worse than that of the people from 5,000 years ago?

JS: People from 4,000 years ago lived in settlements that were on sandy shores in quite flat areas not among the rocks. So this was a bit of unusual environment for them. When you enter a place like that, you suddenly hear sounds that you don’t understand or know where they’re coming from.

There is a term, ‘acousmatic’, that relates to sounds without a known source in electroacoustic music. It is interesting to think from this point of view because research from sound studies shows that acousmatic sounds provoke a special listening mode. When you start searching for sound sources it may trigger the appearance of invisible beings talking to you because you cannot find the sources. In this case they naturally thought that the source was the rock because this is where the sound appeared.

ScienceVega: Were the paintings made during winter when the lake was frozen?

JS: There are several hypotheses: they could have made them from a boat in summer, sitting or standing, because the paintings are of approximately human height. What makes the theory that they painted from the boat so interesting is that at these sites there are a number of paintings of boats with people in them.

But they also could access the site on the ice in winter. And it is thought they might even have built up a pile of snow to use as a platform when painting. We don’t know exactly, but it is thought it could be from a boat and from the ice during the winter.

ScienceVega: Do the winter and summer acoustic recordings provide the same results or is there a seasonal shift due to air temperature?

JS: In this case, the air or cold conditions don’t really affect the sound. What affects the sound is the snow. Painted cliffs are vertical walls, so they are not covered by snow and they reflect the sound in exactly the same way in winter and summer. What makes the difference is other echoes, which are reflected from the surrounding environment. Those echoes are muffled and they are quieter in winter compared to summer because snow cover makes these surfaces unreflective. At Keltavuori we have about the same strong echo coming from the cliff in both seasons.

We visited several sites in winter and summer, and one of the reasons was that in winter it is a lot easier to access a site over the ice surface of the lake with the intention of taking measurements. We carry a lot of equipment and in summer it involves a boat and the raft which we have to anchor. That makes the whole process more time consuming and difficult, but we wanted to have more accurate measurements, and to be able to compare winter and summer acoustics. But we didn’t find a difference in the echo that comes from the cliff.

Custom-built raft used for summertime recordings. Credit: Photo by Julia Shpinitskaya.

ScienceVega: Can you tell me about the custom-built floating raft that you used?

JS: The reason for making this raft is that we needed a stable recording platform to be kept on the water for summer recordings. Recordings are difficult to take and we needed to keep the microphones and loudspeaker in a separate vessel because if the equipment is in the same boat with the researchers, the boat is swaying and turning, which disturbs the equipment and distorts acoustic measurements.

This was crucial as the aim was to measure the angle of arrival of echoes to be able to show precisely which part of the rock the echo came from. We needed the exact location information from the water. Water is moving and unstable, but the raft can be kept stable by anchor, and we anchored it even when the depth to the bottom of the lake was 20 to 30 metres.

The link to the original paper can be found here.

Julia Shpinitskaya is an ethnomusicologist and joined the University of Helsinki archaeoacoustics team in 2019. Her research areas bridge together sound studies, soundscape, sound design, and sound anthropology, spanning versatile aspects of sound studies.

One area of her research is devoted to exploration of cultural concepts and sacred forms of sound in non-European cultures based on ethnographic materials, cultural anthropology and findings of ethnomusicology, archaeomusicology and archaeoacoustics. The project develops via comparative study of myth, sound rituals, sacred singing and performance, and study of acoustics of sacred sites.

Portrait credit: University of Helsinki.