Musing on Stone Age Music

Reported here (and everywhere, it seems) was the latest about really old flutes discovered in Germany. This article wanders (and wonders) about really old music. You know what I'd really like to hear, a composition from the few remaining stone-age tribes in existence today, to get a feel for what music may have sounded like 30,000 years or so ago. Hmmm, with You Tube and whatnot, there should be something out there??? Anyone with a heads up, please let me know (if you read this). (Image: bones as musical instruments, image from Irish Musical Instruments). From The New York Times Pondering Prehistoric Melodies By DANIEL J. WAKIN Published: June 27, 2009 “I have a reasonable good ear in music,” says Bottom in Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” “Let’s have the tongs and the bones.” A Stone Age ancestor living near what is now Ulm, Germany, did Bottom one better. He took the hollow bone of a griffon vulture, carved five holes in it and made one of the first flutes known to exist. (Perhaps it was a she; there are lots of great women flutists.) [In fact, it has now been acknowledged that probably a majority of the cave artists were females; and it makes sense that, given the small size of the bone and ivory flutes that have been discovered, the smaller hands of female musicians would have plyed upon them, just like the smaller hands of female artists plyed the colors upon the walls of ancient caves where early people lived). This was at least 35,000 years ago — maybe even 40,000 years ago. Could it have been around the time of the birth of human-made melody, a period when speech perhaps began to develop? It must have been a fine improvement on the whack of tongs and bones. A report of the flute’s discovery last week gives rise to all sorts of speculation about the origins of music and how it creates a palpable link between us and our prehistoric predecessors. “It’s easier to think of them as conscious, autonomous individuals if they’re making music,” said Sato Moughalian, a New York-based professional flutist. “To make the step from just breathing to actually producing a sound requires a different sense of self.” At the least, the find delights flute players, who like to point out that their instrument (outside of percussion) is the most elemental of all. No reeds to blow past, no strings to make vibrate, no mouthpiece to buzz. “It’s very simple,” Robert Langevin, the principal flutist of the New York Philharmonic. “There’s no intermediate thing to produce the sound. Our way of breathing is similar to the way of singers.” And nothing is more natural to the human organism than breathing. Of course, Mr. Langevin and his colleagues play something much different than the cave flute. Their flutes are generally made of metal (sometimes even gold), have keys and pads that cover holes. They are also played sideways. The five-hole vulture bone flute has a notched end, across which the player blows. Its discovery was reported in an article in the journal Nature. Nicholas J. Conard of the University of Tübingen in Germany was one of the authors. He said an experimental archaeologist named Wulf Hein made a reproduction and recorded several tunes, including “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The flute’s basic scale replicates the notes accompanying the line “Oh say can you see,” Dr. Conard said. The flute and several other types found nearby indicate a high-level of musical and technological sophistication, he said. While the nature of the music they made at the time is unknown, “There had to have been Paganinis, Mozarts, Hendrixes,” he said. The discovery is also a reminder that music was present at the earliest flowering of human culture, an idea that musicians and music lovers can embrace with great joy, said Steven Stucky, a composer (who has written a double concerto for flutes and orchestra). “This must have been a fundamental part of life,” he said. It is, of course, impossible to establish how humans became musical. The song of birds and patter of rain may have provided examples. “Once humans got the musical bug going, I can imagine sort of looking at everything,” said Peter Schickele, the composer and alter ego of P. D. Q. Bach. “Can you hit it, can you blow it, can you make a sound out of it?” He added, “I’ve done a fair amount of that in my own life.” Dr. Conard suggested music strengthened and extended social bonds, perhaps contributing to the evolutionary survival of homo sapiens. The flute was found in an area also inhabited by Neanderthals, who — according to the archaeological record — did not appear to be very musical. About 10,000 years later, they fell extinct. [NOT a logical conclusion to this otherwise good article, but evidence of the author getting lazy and going for the easy punch line against "ape man" Neanderthal. Bad form, tsk tsk.]

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Wow - learn more about the ancient practice of using bones to make music: The Bones - Ancient to Modern, by Sue E. Barber

World's Oldest Flute?

Nah - the specialists rejected the oldest flute recovered from an archaeological dig and dated to 44,000 years ago because the archaeologist who uncovered THAT flute suggested it might have been made by so-called "Neanderthal" man. But this one (story follows) is a very important find, nonetheless. I just don't agree with their continued emphasis on a distinction between so-called "Neanderthal" and so-called "modern" human. But read this story - I think there's something else going on here. Prehistoric flute in Germany is oldest known By PATRICK McGROARTY, Associated Press Writer Patrick Mcgroarty, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jun 24, 1:30 pm ET BERLIN – A bird-bone flute unearthed in a German cave was carved some 35,000 years ago and is the oldest handcrafted musical instrument yet discovered, archaeologists say, offering the latest evidence that early modern humans in Europe had established a complex and creative culture. A team led by University of Tuebingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard assembled the flute from 12 pieces of griffon vulture bone scattered in a small plot of the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany. Together, the pieces comprise a 8.6-inch (22-centimeter) instrument with five holes and a notched end. Conard said the flute was 35,000 years old. "It's unambiguously the oldest instrument in the world," Conard told The Associated Press this week. His findings were published online Wednesday by the journal Nature. Other archaeologists agreed with Conard's assessment. [Of course they would, because to do otherwise might cast the entire taught "human time-line of development" in doubt and trash generations of work, including perhaps their own work.] April Nowell, a Paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Victoria in Canada, said the flute predates previously discovered instruments "but the dates are not so much older that it's surprising or controversial." Nowell was not involved in Conard's research. [I'll take the reporter's word for that - but perhaps she has an ax to grind - see below.] The Hohle Fels flute is more complete and appears slightly older than bone and ivory fragments from seven other flutes recovered in southern German caves and documented by Conard and his colleagues in recent years. Another flute excavated in Austria is believed to be 19,000 years old, and a group of 22 flutes found in the French Pyrenees mountains has been dated at up to 30,000 years ago. Conard's team excavated the flute in September 2008, the same month they recovered six ivory fragments from the Hohle Fels cave that form a female figurine they believe is the oldest known sculpture of the human form. Together, the flute and the figure — found in the same layer of sediment — suggest that modern humans had established an advanced culture in Europe 35,000 years ago, said Wil Roebroeks, an archaeologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands who didn't participate in Conard's study. [It could equally suggest that "Neanderthal" man, who also lived in the cave (but dates of occupation were not given in this article), was more creative than the experts give him credit for.] Roebroeks said it's difficult to say how cognitively and socially advanced these people were. But the physical trappings of their lives — including musical instruments, personal decorations and figurative art — match the objects we associate with modern human behavior, Roebroeks said. [Like those 80,000 to 100,000 year old shells with drilled holes found in an African cave many miles away from the seashore? According to conventional thinking and time line, those can't have been made by so-called "modern" man, so who made them then?] "It shows that from the moment that modern humans enter Europe ... it is as modern in terms of material culture as it can get," Roebroeks told The AP. He agreed with Conard's assertion that the flute appears to be the earliest known musical instrument in the world. [Emphasis on earliest known. We don't know what else is out there, waiting to be discovered.] Neanderthals also lived in Europe around the time the flute and sculpture were made, and frequented the Hohle Fels cave. Both Conard and Roebroeks believe, however, that layered deposits left by both species over thousands of years suggest the artifacts were crafted by early modern humans. [Did the evidence show "Neanderthal" and "modern" human lived in the cave at separate times? Overlapping times? If overlapping, how was "Neanderthal" occupation distinguished from "modern" human occupation?] "The material record is so completely different from what happened in these hundreds of thousands of years before with the Neanderthals," Roebroeks said. "I would put my money on modern humans having created and played these flutes." [Oh, really? Wanna go to Vegas, baby?] In 1995, archaeologist Ivan Turk excavated a bear bone artifact from a cave in Slovenia, known as the Divje Babe flute, that he has dated at around 43,000 years ago and suggested was made by Neanderthals. But other archaeologists, including Nowell, have challenged that theory, suggesting instead that the twin holes on the 4.3-inch-long (11-centimeter-long) bone were made by a carnivore's bite. [Hmmmm, interesting, April Nowell pooh-poohed Ivan Turk's discovery back in 1995. Do these two have a prior history???] Turk did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment. [One cannot assume that email ever reached him. I've sent lots of emails out and have never received a "bounce-back" that the email address was no longer a good one, but in fact, was not. And if the email did reach Turk, perhaps he had his own reasons not to respond, that have nothing to do with the Hohle Fels discovery.] Nowell said other researchers have hypothesized that early humans may have used spear points as wind chimes and that markings on some cave stalactites suggest they were used as percussive instruments. But there is no proof [how does one prove the use of wind chimes? And to which "other researchers" is she referring?], she said, and the Hohle Fels flute is much more credible because it's the oldest specimen from an established style of bone and ivory flutes in Europe. [What established style? Turk's flute was made out of bone and had two holes and an approximate length of 4 inches. Did Nowell do a comprehensive comparison of the two discoveries? Of Turk's discovery against all other bone flutes discovered thus far? No explanation is given for Nowell's extraordinary comment.] "There's a distinction between sporadic appearances and the true development of, in this case, a musical culture," Nowell said. "The importance of something like this flute is it shows a well-established technique and tradition." [This statement is ridiculous! First, what are the "sporadic appearances" to which she is referring? Second, what does she mean by "the true development of ... a musical culture? Is she distinguishing between someone "accidentally creating" a bone flute, and someone deliberately creating a bone flute? But how did the invention of the bone flute come about if not at first by accident? It was Nowell who dismissed the idea that a 43,000 year old flute discovered in a Slovenian cave by archaeologist Ivan Turk could have been created by so-called "Neanderthal." Why? Did Nowell already have a vested interested in her "modern" human theory in 1995? Is there something else going on here?] Conard said it's likely that early modern humans — and perhaps Neanderthals, too — were making music longer than 35,000 years ago. But he added the Hohle Fels flute and the others found across Europe strengthen evidence that modern humans in Europe were establishing cultural behavior similar to our own. [Again, assumes a distinction between so-called "Neanderthal" behavior and so-called "modern" human behavior, but does the available evidence really support this - or is it just being interpreted according to still existing 19th century prejudices and assumptions? Does someone have a book deal pending? I've no idea, but sometimes in this type of dispute money is involved, one way or another.] Egyptologists are starting to go back and re-examining records of excavations and artifacts recovered from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and, with new methods of analysis, are gaining new insights (and correcting erroneous assumptions that were made years ago). Perhaps the specialists who focus on prehistoric man could benefit from doing the same. Just saying...