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A need for music even in cave era
Flute fragments 35,000 years old
Archeologists displayed an ancient flute yesterday.
(Daniel Maurer/ Associated Press)
By Carolyn Y. Johnson
Globe Staff / June 25, 2009
A need for music even in cave era
Some excerpts :
Archeologists said yesterday that they had unearthed the oldest musical instruments ever found - several flutes that inhabitants of southwestern Germany laboriously carved from bone and ivory at least 35,000 years ago.
The find suggests just how integral artistic expression may be to human existence: Music apparently flourished even in prehistoric days when mere survival was a full-time endeavor.
Fragments of the instruments were found in a cave, amid bones from bears and mammoths and flakes of flint from a prehistoric tool shop.
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There are numerous theories about why music emerged. Charles Darwin thought that music might give individuals a better chance of attracting mates and reproducing. Others believe it is a way to demonstrate a group’s strength and unity. Some think that music may be a byproduct of the evolution of other cognitive abilities, such as language.
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Just a few feet away from a bone flute, researchers discovered one of the oldest examples of figurative art - the sculpture of a woman carved from mammoth ivory, a find announced earlier this year. Excavations have also unearthed an array of other art, including carvings of mammoths, cave lions, and mythic half-animal, half-human figures.
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The flutes were made by Homo sapiens who evolved in Africa and spread across the world, arriving in Europe around 45,000 years ago. Radiocarbon analysis by two laboratories indicate that the flutes are at least 35,000 years old, and given their distribution in the excavation, Conard estimates that they date back to about 40,000 years ago.
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Fashioned from the wing bone of a griffon vulture, the flute is about 9 inches long. Fine lines chipped into the bones were probably used as measurements to ensure that the five finger holes were spaced appropriately, the researchers concluded, and musicians likely played the instrument by blowing through V-shaped notches carved in the top of the flute.
Researchers also found evidence of technologically advanced flutes made from mammoth ivory. In the same excavation, they discovered two fragments of ivory flutes, which would have been constructed by splitting a piece of mammoth ivory, hollowing out both halves, carving the finger holes, and sealing them back together.
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The find suggests just how integral artistic expression may be to human existence: Music apparently flourished even in prehistoric days when mere survival was a full-time endeavor.
Fragments of the instruments were found in a cave, amid bones from bears and mammoths and flakes of flint from a prehistoric tool shop.
......................
There are numerous theories about why music emerged. Charles Darwin thought that music might give individuals a better chance of attracting mates and reproducing. Others believe it is a way to demonstrate a group’s strength and unity. Some think that music may be a byproduct of the evolution of other cognitive abilities, such as language.
.....................
Just a few feet away from a bone flute, researchers discovered one of the oldest examples of figurative art - the sculpture of a woman carved from mammoth ivory, a find announced earlier this year. Excavations have also unearthed an array of other art, including carvings of mammoths, cave lions, and mythic half-animal, half-human figures.
................
The flutes were made by Homo sapiens who evolved in Africa and spread across the world, arriving in Europe around 45,000 years ago. Radiocarbon analysis by two laboratories indicate that the flutes are at least 35,000 years old, and given their distribution in the excavation, Conard estimates that they date back to about 40,000 years ago.
..............
Fashioned from the wing bone of a griffon vulture, the flute is about 9 inches long. Fine lines chipped into the bones were probably used as measurements to ensure that the five finger holes were spaced appropriately, the researchers concluded, and musicians likely played the instrument by blowing through V-shaped notches carved in the top of the flute.
Researchers also found evidence of technologically advanced flutes made from mammoth ivory. In the same excavation, they discovered two fragments of ivory flutes, which would have been constructed by splitting a piece of mammoth ivory, hollowing out both halves, carving the finger holes, and sealing them back together.
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