Soundtracks is a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Led by Principal Investigator Professor Mark Edmonds, Sound Tracks is a collaborative project bringing together the British Library Sound Archive, the Creswell Crags Heritage Trust, and the University of York Departments of Music and Archaeology. Jon Hughes is a postdoctoral research assistant on the project, along with archaeologist Dr Ben Elliott, and co-investigator Dr Jez Wells. Sound Tracks culminated in the composition ‘Refugium’, an ambisonic sound installation and choral piece performed at the Creswell Crags in August 2017. The book and CD are due soon.
The Sound Tracks project investigates how sound has shaped the human experience in and around the Creswell Gorge area over the past 50,000 years. Creswell Crags, a series of small caves situated along a limestone gorge on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border, is one of the most important early Prehistoric sites in Britain, demonstrating evidence of Neanderthal occupation, the oldest examples of Ice Age cave art and a more contemporary history of mining and quarrying.
Using archaeology, paleoecology, archival sound recordings, text and oral histories, Sound Tracks explores the sonic environment of the Creswell Crags landscape over time and created a series of auditory resources for both the academic community and the wider public.
Soundtracks blog hosted by the British Library
Jon Hughes 