Graeme Lawson: Sound Tracks—The Archaeology of Music and Ancient Instruments

How far back does humanity’s relationship with music reach? What can ancient musical instruments reveal about the people who created them?

On Earth Ancients, Cliff Dunning welcomes archaeologist, musician, and historian Graeme Lawson to explore Sound Tracks: An Archaeological Journey Through Our Musical Past. Through sixty remarkable musical objects and the stories of their discovery, Lawson traces how music and sound helped shape human civilization.

From a German harmonica recovered from a nineteenth-century American battlefield to a 1,300-year-old Peruvian flask designed to warble like a bird and a Stone Age flute preserved in a cave in southwestern France, these discoveries give voice to people whose music might otherwise have disappeared. We explore what music archaeology reveals about ancient cultures, prehistoric instruments, craftsmanship, and the enduring human desire to create sound.

How did music preserve memories, express identity, and bring communities together? What can surviving artifacts tell us about musical traditions across continents and thousands of years?

Lawson holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and has held senior research fellowships at Cambridge and the Freie Universität Berlin. His pioneering research applies scientific methods to music’s prehistory, tracing connections across cultures and generations.

Join us for a journey into the origins of music, where archaeological discoveries reveal an essential part of our shared human story.

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