Join Professor David Hendy as he zips around the globe busily recording his BBC Radio 4 series Noise: A Human History.

Exploring everything from the shamanistic trance-music of our cave-dwelling ancestors, the babel of ancient Rome, the massacre of noisy cats in pre-revolutionary Paris, and the sonic assaults of trench warfare, right through to our struggle to find calm in the cacophony of a modern metropolis, you can follow Hendy’s aural adventures online here.

He’s already captured the sounds our prehistoric ancestors heard in the cave of Arcy-sur-Cure and is now enthusiastically pointing his trusty microphone at the Walden Pond in Massachusetts, recording its flatulent ice no less! With regular updates, Hendy’s official blog is the best place to unpick, unravel and marvel at the world’s incredibly noisy soundtrack.

Noise: A Human History is a thirty-part series for BBC Radio 4, starting Monday 18 March, 2013. The accompanying book published by Profile Books is out Thursday 14 March 2013, £16.99.

Follow David Hendy on Twitter @davidjhendy

Find out more at makingnoiseblog.wordpress.com