Several years ago, we brought you a transcription and some audio interpretations of the The oldest known song in the worldDiscovered in the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit and dating from the 14th century BCE. Probably played on an instrument resembling an old lyre, the so-called “Hurrian cult Song” or “Hurrian Hymn No. 6” sounds from another world to our ears, although modern musicologists can only guess the tempo and the rhythm of the song.
When we realize even further in time, long before the advent of writing systems, we are completely lost as to the forms of music that prehistoric humans could have preferred. But we know that music was probably part of their daily life, because it is ours, and we have solid evidence of the types of instruments they played. In 2008, archaeologists discovered fragments of sculpted flutes of the vulture and mammoths bones on a site of the stone age cave in the south of Germany called Hohle Fels. These instruments Date of 42,000 to 43,000 years and can supplant the previous results of flutes on a nearby site dating back 35,000 years.
Image via the archaeological news network
The flutes are meticulously designed, reports National GeographicIn particular the gigantic bone flute, which would have been “particularly difficult to do”. At the time of their discovery, the researchers hypothesized that the flutes “could have been one of the cultural achievements which gave the first modern European (Homo sapiens) The settlers an advantage over their Neanderthal now extinguished (Homo neanderthalensis) cousins. “But as with a large part of our knowledge of Neanderthals, including New proofs of burial with Homo sapiensThese conclusions may have to be revised.
It may be that the very underestimated Neanderthals make their own flutes. In 1995, a discovery of a flute made from a cave bear femur could suggest. Found by archaeologist Ivan Turk in a Neanderthal campsite in Divje Babe, in northwestern Slovenia, this instrument (above) is estimated at more than 43,000 years and perhaps up to 80,000 years. According to the musicologist Bob FinkThe four fingers of the flute correspond to four notes of a diatonic scale (Do, Re, Mi…). “Unless we deny a flute at all,” says Fink, the notes of the flute “are inevitably diatonic and will look like an almost perfect adjustment in any type of standard, modern or ancient diatonic scale.” To demonstrate this point, the curator of the National Slovenian museum had a replica clay of the manufactured flute. You can hear him play at the top of the post by the musician Slovenian Ljuben Dimkaroski.
The prehistoric instrument indeed produces whole tones and the half of the diatonic scale, so completely, in fact, that Dimkaroski is able to play fragments of several compositions of Beethoven, Verdi, Ravel, Dvořák and others, as well as certain free improvisations “Mocking Voices”. The video YouTube page Explain his choice of music as “a pot-pourri of fragments of compositions from various authors”, selected “to show the capacities of the instrument, Tonal Range, Staccato, Legato, Glissando …” (Dimkaroski claims to have understood how to play the instrument in a dream.) Although archaeologists have strongly disputed if the flute is in fact the work of the neanderthal suggestedIf this is the case, the conclusion would contradict complaints That close human relatives “left no firm evidence of having been musical”. But whatever its origin, it certainly seems to be a hominid artifact – not the work of predators – and a key to unlocking the prehistory of musical expression.
Note: a previous version of this article appeared on our site in 2015.
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Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him to @jdmagness
At Learnopoly, Finn has championed a mission to deliver unbiased, in-depth reviews of online courses that empower learners to make well-informed decisions. With over a decade of experience in financial services, he has honed his expertise in strategic partnerships and business development, cultivating both a sharp analytical perspective and a collaborative spirit. A lifelong learner, Finn’s commitment to creating a trusted guide for online education was ignited by a frustrating encounter with biased course reviews.