Drago Kunej and Ivan Turk

Abstract

A flutelike perforated thighbone of a young cave bear was found in 1995 in solid

breccia of layer 8 at Divje babe I cave site in Slovenia. The find originates from

a reliably dated middle Paleolithic level, and could thus be the oldest musical

instrument so far known. What in fact does this find represent, and what does it

mean for Paleolithic archeology? Two main hypotheses have been proposed: the

find is a human artifact although it lacks preserved tool marks, and the bone was

pierced by a carnivore in an abnormal way and shows clear traces of carnivore

chewing. We performed tests on a set of careful reconstructions of the bone.

These show that it is possible to produce a variety of sounds on such an object,

lending support to the idea that it may have been used as a sound or signal aid,

perhaps even as a musical instrument with specific expressive power. Of course,

this interpretation raises a large number of additional questions, many of which

can be answered at the present time.

There is no doubt that the beginnings of music extend back into the

Paleolithic, many tens of thousands of years into the past. The question

is how far back. In Europe, the first intentionally produced musical

instrument is a bone flute from the start of the Upper Paleolithic, or

Aurignacian^1 that was found in the cave of Geissenklösterle in Germany.

The age of the find was assessed by the radiocarbon method at c. 36,000

years old (Hahn and Münzel 1995). In addition there are other relatively

rare finds of bone flutes from later phases of the Upper Paleolithic,

mainly the Gravettian and Magdalenian (Fages and Mourer-Chauviré

1983; Buisson 1990; Rottländer 1996). In terms of the number of finds,

the French cave of Isturitz (Buisson 1990) certainly holds first place.

Since the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic (c. 40,000 to 30,000 years

ago) in Germany, as everywhere in Europe, was accompanied by a high

degree of development of art (Hahn 1983), the Geissenklösterle find

from the Aurignacian is not particularly surprising but rather to be

expected. However, before the Upper Paleolithic, the situation was very

different. Art from this period is practically unknown, although this

does not mean that it did not exist (Marshack 1988; Stepanchuk 1993).

Perhaps it remains archeologically unperceived, embodied in objects that

have fallen prey to the ravages of time. This fate is likely to befall objects

made of wood, and in the past, as now, flutes must have been made

from hollow plant stems as well as from bone. It seems unlikely that

our scattered finds provide a true reflection of the prevalence of flutes

(and music) in the Paleolithic. All Paleolithic finds of bone flutes together

can only be the tip of the iceberg. What is hidden from archeologists

is the far larger mass of flutes made from plant stems, which are lost

forever.

15

New Perspectives on the Beginnings of Music: Archeological

and Musicological Analysis of a Middle Paleolithic Bone “Flute”