ABSTRACT
Most musical traditions are always changing, if at varying rates, through innovation by creators and performers, influences from other traditions, revivals of almost forgotten styles, changes in other features of social and cultural life, and many other causes. Yet outside of studies of popular music, we have little idea of how these changes occur. When a ceramic pot breaks and is discarded, its pieces are eventually covered by earth and preserved virtually unchanged for centuries. When a community is abandoned, the structures of its houses, the location of its hearths, trash from its residents, pollen from its gardens, and some remnants of its food often endure and give mute testimony to details of the life those residents led. But the operative word is mute: there is no sound.
