"A Neanderthal flute made from a bear's
thigh
bone (Science, Nov. 2) was used to play sweet music [your words, Bonnie,
or some hack journalist's?], reports the Times of London. Canadian musicologist
Bob Fink has studied the four inch artifact and concluded that it is based
on the same seven-note scale used in modern western music. The flute, as
it survives, could play four notes (Mi, Fa, Sol and Lah) in a minor key.
In its original form, it would have been 15 inches long and capable of
producing the entire scale."
Now I find this interesting, as it is considered in musicology that
a pentatonic scale preceded the diatonic, yet the article above implies
the latter! The Neanderthals were beyond rudimentary melodies, it seems!
-- Kent
.
To Kent Nickerson from Bob
Fink
April 14,
1997
.
Dear Kent Nickerson:
I think the pentatonic would tend to precede the diatonic anywhere,
anytime.
The 3rd and seventh notes introduce half-tones into the pentatonic
scale, and unless you have tonality or a strong sense of key driving your
melodies, you'd not take kindly to these additional notes. For a melody-lover,
they serve as "leading tones" to the 4th note and the octave.
These would only interest a melodically oriented musician. If you weren't
so melodical, and still wanted to fill the two big tone-and-a-half gaps
in the pentatonic, but also wanted to preserve an avoidance of the additions
forming half-tones, then you would make the additions neither minor nor
major but between them -- "neutral" tones, and the worst you
have to put up with then is a 3/4-tone. The bone had a neutral third --
which could reflect this choice.
That is to say -- they already could have had a pentatonic that they
were beginning to turn into a diatonic -- just as the Chinese independently
did the same with their "pien" tones, and just as the ancient
Scots and Irish did as well, occassionally adding the seventh and 3rd to
their melodies, but not permanently into their scale.
There are several citations about this in the "Origin of Music"
book I wrote in 1970. I didn't mean to imply the Neanderthals had no pentatonic
"first." I have no idea -- but IF they had the diatonic, then
I suspect it was preceded by a pentatonic (for which, of course, we have
no evidence). UPDATE: Now
we do: Click
here.
--Bob Fink
.
May 5, 1997, Sent by: Michael
McBroom,
bodhi@earthlink.net
to Bonnie Blackwell, forewarded to
Bob
Fink
..
Bonnie Blackwell wrote: "the notes are four notes in a harmonic
minor scale, neutral mi, fa, so, minor la."
As a trained musician, I find the above statement confusing, and either
incomplete or incorrect. It was not indicated which "sol-fa"
system was being used. Is it the "movable-do system," in which
the label for the tonic remains the same, regardless of pitch, or is it
the absolute system, as used by the French and Italians, where each label
corresponds to a specific note, the way C,D,E,F,G,A,B (or octaves thereof)
do here?
Further, I'm not sure how to interpret a "neutral mi" or
a "minor la." Perhaps "natural" was meant, instead
of "neutral?" If so, this would suggest that the absolute system
is being used, which would mean the notes would be E, F, G, and ??? Perhaps
A-flat?
If it is correct that the four notes in question are E, F, G, and A-flat,
then stating that they represents a harmonic minor scale is not entirely
accurate. This scale fragment can be interpreted as being in the key of
F minor, with a raised-7th, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tones present. One of the
distinguishing characteristics of a harmonic minor scale is the raised
7th tone, which this one has (the "mi" or E). But the most crucial
distinction -- the one that gives the harmonic minor scale its exotic eastern
quality -- is the 1.5-step interval between the 6th and 7th tones (minor
6th to major 7th intervals). This scale fragment lacks the 6th tone, so
we cannot say with certainty that the 1.5-step interval was present. We
can't even say with certainty that it is a minor scale. It could just as
easily be an A-flat augmented 5th, or a B-flat diminished 5th scale fragment
as well.
Best,
Michael McBroom,
California State University, Fullerton
Graduate Student, Linguistics Research Interest: Biological Origins
of Language
.
Bob Fink to Michael McBroom: May
6, 1997
.
Dear M. McBroom:
The 4 notes on the bone flute correspond to the Flat Mi, Fa, Sol, and
flat-La of a minor scale in the movable-Doh sytem. Without knowing the
length of the original bone and playing it, no absolute pitch can be assumed.
The flat Mi is sharper than a perfect match. It is justified as a "match
to notes in a diatonic minor scale" (ANY minor scale -- harmonic or
melodic) on two grounds:
a) because of a similar known history of wide and varied tunings of
the third scale note throughout much of the world, especially the western
world, but also Africa, and
b) awareness of the accuracy of workmanship likely to expect from
Neanderthals.
This makes the match fit into a minor scale in a way that would still sound
"ok" to an average ear -- plus or minus a quartertone for the
3rd -- especially when it is known that a "Blue" or
"Neutral"
third is often preferred in many cultures in their otherwise diatonic scales.
There's nothing about the harmonic minor in the essay. The only reason
that arose and was re-mentioned by Bonnie was when I made a flute to match
the bone's hole-spacings. I could have fit it into ANY minor scale, but
since the other holes were already drilled when I bought the commercial
flute, I only covered over and redrilled the 4 that were relevant to the
bone. That made the altered flute into a flute with a harmonic minor scale
-- only in this instance. As neither the Re nor the Ti exist on this bone
(if the 4 are identified correctly), then we don't know whether they would've
been there at all (or b flat, or b natural).
There was a second match named in the essay, in which the 4 holes are
identified as Do, Re, Mi and Fa, on a closed-end flute. This would have
made a match in which we might assume a slightly flat Re (as in a descending
scale using the Re as a descending "leading-tone"). The chances
of a fair to good match such as these two were worked out in the appendix
of the essay as being one in hundreds to have occured by chance. So we
allowed ourselves the assumptions they WERE aiming at a scale, and the
notes were close enough to assume a match in both instances (based on a
possible preference on the part of the Neanderthals for a blue note or
downward leading-tone, and/or based on the average untrained ear).
We don't claim to have proved anything: Just to have come up with a
decent likliehood.
-- Bob Fink.
.
Michael McBroom to Bob Fink: May
7, 1997
Thanks very much for the clarification. This
makes much more sense.
[Sandra Trehub is one of the authors
of
a noted study on musically untutored babies, showing that they prefer harmony
to dissonance.]
To: Bob
Fink
I just returned from Italy, having taken the
opportunity to visit friends once I was overseas. The Florence meetings
were very interesting but barely scratched the surface of music (unless
bird "song" and whale "song" are accorded musical status,
as many conference attendees were ready to do).
The meetings focused largely on the evolution
of communication in general, with relatively little attention accorded
to human language and music. Apparently, music will be at centre stage
in subsequent meetings that are planned.
I downloaded your fascinating article on the
bone flute some time ago (from the Internet) and mentioned it in my presentation
(even had transparencies of your illustrations). I also mentioned (and
played a sample of) the Kilmer, Crocker, & Brown song. Later, Bruno
Nettl told me that ethnomusicologists reject the Kilmer et al. interpretation
but I never learned why. Unfortunately, the meeting was dense with presentations
and very light on discussion time, impeding the exchange of information
across disciplines.
-- Sandra________________________
University of Toronto, Erindale Campus
Mississauga,
The reasons why ethnomusicologists are
dismissive
of Kilmer's results (tho' not all are, I'm sure) is because they are motivated
by a laudable, but over-zealous, desire to avoid ethnocentrism. That is,
they are always suspicious of any conclusions that tout the diatonic scale
(or even the pentatonic) as having any "natural" foundation
because:
a) They believe it may be a subjective attempt
to justify "western" musical superiority by saying western music's
scale foundations are the best, most "advanced" musical system
(which is anathema to them as they hold each musical system must be judged
exclusively from the internal standards of any culture, tribe, group, people
or locale, and because they hate the term "primitive" and downplay
almost any evolutionary stages to music), and
b) they are not very inter-disiplinary: They
(generally) know very little about the physics of sound (Helmholtz and
acoustics), physiology, biology, anthropology, and evolution. They tend
to support cultural and psychological relativism and conditioning as fundamental
processes of human behavior (and most human behavior is conditioned, but
not all.)
In my opinion, both Kilmer's findings and the
evidence that the Neanderthal flute may be diatonic is ALSO evidence that
so-called "western" musical foundations are decidedly NOT western
after all! So much for ethnocentricism.
And secondly, I cannot accept that the scale's
historic development with its immense number of parallels to acoustics
and mounting evidence in other disciplines (such as yours) is all
coincidence.
In Kilmer's case, (as I understand it) the
match-up
of the number of syllables with the number of notes carved into the clay
tablets (a match-up which resulted once they assumed a harmonic structure
existed in the song) was too hard to accept as coincidence -- especially
when it also led to finding the harmonies were mostly thirds [like ancient
English gymel and various African music samples found in Nettl's own work
"Music in Primitive Cultures"] -- and led ALSO to the diatonic
scale. How much "coincidence" are we supposed to ignore??
The only other explanation is that Kilmer
consciously
engineered her data with Crockett in order to produce pre-biased conclusions
-- which, knowing Kilmer, is totally impossible to believe.
To me, ethnomusicologist's rejections are a
die-hard
phenomena. You can also check out the net again:
http://www.greenwych.ca/natbasis.htm
under the part called "An Evolutionary Process in Progress."
Like you, I think I find question and
discussion
often more interesting and enlightening than an overload of presentations.
Thanks very much for writing. --Bob Fink
25 Jun 1997
From: Dr. T. Temple Tuttle
t.tuttle@bones.asic.csuohio.edu
To:
greenwich
I have recently been forwarded your article on
a Neanderthal flute, and wondered if you are for real, or a delayed April
Fool's Day joke. There are so many ethnocentric and acoustical errors,
I thought it must be the latter.
Why do you presuppose a seven-note system?
Why
do you construct your scales ascending? Why do you consider hole size but
not their lateral placement? Other than the Hebrew gymel (vocal), what
evidence do you have for instrumental harmony in early cultures? Why do
you indicate that the major scale is generally the preferred mode, when
even today it is not, internationally? Why do you consider the comma a
measure of error, when it is part of some extant tuning systems (see India's
22-srutis)? When figuring pitches by ratios, how can you deal with the
missing portions of your specimen?
If a joke, then "HA-HA!". If
serious,
let's tawk! [My current research deals with misinformation regarding the
pitches and functions of 16th century lithophones in south India.] Best
wishes, and no offense intended,
--Tom Tuttle
Music Department College of Arts and
Sciences
Cleveland State University
Jun 25 1997
From Bob Fink
To: "Dr. T. Temple Tuttle"
t.tuttle@mail.asic.csuohio.edu
Dear Tom Tuttle:
You wrote: "Why do you presuppose
a seven-note
system."
The issue of the essay was whether the notes
playable by the bone artifact would match any of the notes in the (widespread)
scales we know of:
a) the whole-tone pentatonic,
b) the diatonic or
c) the equal-spaced scales that would be
arrived
at by spacing holes equally to suit finger widths.
Since the holes were unequally spaced, c) was
ruled out.
The Pentatonic was ruled out because of the
half-tone
spacing.
The holes were spaced so that given the full
length of the bone (attested by paleontologists), the notes would play
4 notes matching a portion of the scale we know as diatonic. This DOESN'T
PROVE they had the whole scale nor that they intended to produce any part
of such a scale. But the odds (worked out in the essay's appendix) are
FAR LIKELIER THAN NOT, that it wasn't a chance arrangement nor intended
to match some hitherto unknown or unusual scale.
You wrote: "Why do you construct
your
scales ascending?"
I construct only one scale (not scales), the
standard modern diatonic, in order to have a mathematical model of the
scale to which I compare the bone. There is nothing assumed about acending.
I could have as easily written out the scale and the charts from right
to left (mirror image) and the conclusions would remain unaltered.
However, in the match #1, the somwhat
off-tuned
"do" (I have to call it something) indicates the next note (re)
could have been a flattened 2nd (as is found commonly in various cultures)
due to a descending or downward "leading note." Therefore, I
have not assumed anything about ascending nor descending, nor is it relevant
to my asking if the notes could match our modern acoustic (non-tempered)
diatonic.
You wrote "Why do you consider
hole size
but not their lateral placement?"
The holes are in line -- there is little lateral
displacement. Nor are hole sizes given much consideration either. I have
no idea what your point is nor why you ask this question.
You wrote: "Other than the Hebrew
gymel
(vocal), what evidence do you have for instrumental harmony in early
cultures?"
There is nothing in the essay that I recall that
refers to the existence of harmony in Neanderthal cultures nor in connection
to this bone flute. However, aside from the bone itself, there is evidence
of early harmony other than gymel. See:
http://www.greenwych.ca/evidence.htm.
You wrote: "Why do you indicate
that
the major scale is generally the preferred mode, when even today it is
not, internationally?"
Statistically, by quantitatively considering
ALL the music in the world played today (including popular music, rock
& roll, etc. INCLUDING when it is played widely in counties other than
its origin (e.g., sales of cassettes and records and 45 rpms in China,
Africa, the Near East and etc.), I think it's pretty obvious that the major
scale predominates over the minor far more today than it probably did in
history, when perhaps (I haven't tried to study this quantitatively) the
minor scale predominated.
However, if you say that the minor scale is
"preferred"
more than major, than that, if true, actually SUPPORTS my argument regarding
match #2 being 4 notes that could fit into a minor scale (IF the Neanderthals
had the whole scale, which cannot be known, except that there IS a good
probability for it).
You wrote: "Why do you consider
the comma
a measure of error...?"
In the essay's appendix, a margin of error had
to be given in order to work out the odds for the hole spacings on the
bone to have occured by chance. If we assumed that a hole couldn't be off
by any amount of error at all, that would impute to Neanderthals a state
of workmanship equal to or greater than the 1/10,000 of an inch found in
modern computerized machine shops. That would be absurd.
If we assumed a too large amount of error,
than
one could legitimately ask whether the hole would have been a non-match
(out of tune) well within or long before this large of a distance error
was reached.
Therefore, consulting with ear-testers,
acoustic
psychologists and other texts, we decided that the present-day common biological
"average" for what an untrained (common) ear would notice was
"out of tune" (from whatever note was intended) would be a
pythagorean
comma -- and even in this regard, "out of tune" historically
(for the diatonic scale) has had different tolerances, depending upon what
area of the scale was involved:
Namely, the third and seventh notes can be
further
out of tune than other notes in the scale before objections to the tuning
occurred.
This would make an excellent subject for
further
direct physiological testing among people who are accustomed to the diatonic
scale.
However -- all that aside -- we felt safe with
an error in the neighborhood of a comma.
You wrote: "When figuring pitches
by
ratios, how can you deal with the missing portions of your specimen?"
I have no idea what this question means. What
do you specifically mean by "missing portions?" Notes? Bone length?
Or?
---Bob Fink See also:
http://www.greenwych.ca/natbasis.htm.
From: "Dr. T. Temple
Tuttle"
To:
greenwich
Wed, 25 Jun
1997
Dear Bob:
I questioned a seven-note system, since much
of early chant (and some present chant) involves only three or four notes...even
when a full seven- or eight-note repertoire of notes is available. [Somehow,
I would expect Neanderthal music to be nearer to chant than Schubert.]
From other examples, I tend to associate
equally-spaced
holes to suit finger widths with rhythmically-oriented flute playing.
The Pentatonic is not a single scale, but may
be anhemitonic (but based on diatonic), or equitonic (where the scale is
divided into five approximately equal portions). A hemitonic-pentatonic
scale cannot be ruled out without additional holes being present.
So I not only agree with the majority of your
scalar conclusions, I certainly embrace your statement that it wasn't a
chance arrangement.
Is a four-tone scale, not including an octave
of the fundamental (tonic) note, a "hitherto unknown or unusual scale"?
Perhaps not then, as now with Vedic chant in India.
Your term "match" is appropriate,
I
believe, for one would expect a musical practice to become normative vocally
first, then matched on an instrument.
I wrote: "Why do you construct your
scales
ascending?" to remind you that the Greek modes, for example, were
conceived descending. One can construct a model based upon the highest
note. (In the Greek example, the added "low" note [proslambanomenos]
was held highest on the kithara. Several Eastern instruments, particularly
pitched ideophones, are held with the highest pitch physically the lowest.)
I guess I have gotten over-sensitive about
musicologists
who do not know or present the debt of Western Art Music, to African and
Mideastern precedents.
In the match #1, IF we presume "the
somewhat
off-tuned "do"" is indeed "in tune", the next
note (re) is a flattened 2nd which is found commonly in various cultures,
AS AN AESTHETIC CHOICE, NOT due to a descending or downward
"leading
note." [The raga determined to be the best to teach children and older
beginners is Mayamalavagoula, consisting of T, 1/2,1-1/2, 1/2, 1, 1/2,
1-1/2, 1/2. This is the same is ascent and descent.]
Hole size is important, but lateral
displacement
is required to prevent nodes from occuring in the area removed for a hole.
The holes being in line -- with little lateral displacement is to be
expected.
I do say that the minor scale is
"preferred"
more than major, particularly in historical perspective. Yes, I actually
SUPPORT your argument regarding match #2 being 4 notes that could fit into
a minor scale. [Or could constitute a 4-tone scale for chant!.] The comma
as a measure of error is rather common. But it has also been used in a
positive way for constructing scale systems in the East. I prefer to use
a non-aesthetic term, such as Hz., for scientific speculation about sound,
since it avoids ethnocentrism and the "basic truths" of Western
Arts Music.
In more realistic terms for the caveman: What
sounds OK by accepted norms? The present-day common biological
"average"
for what an untrained (common) ear would notice was "out of tune"
(from whatever note was intended) may be more or less acute than that of
the caveman. (I wonder how much damage these young people do to their hearing
in Rock Wheels? Once I wandered too close to a speaker tower, sitting in
on a Chicago performance at Atlantic City, and I lost hearing in my right
ear for over two days!)
I would accept the Pythagorean comma as a
measure
of being "out of tune". However, I have found that one may train
their ear to an acuity which surpasses that standard. The 22-sruti system
of South India requires accuracy to < +/- 1/2 comma.(Furthermore, I
have been working with a recording engineer on my lithophone project, aiming
at 1/3 Hz as a tolerance.)
You were safe with an error in the
neighborhood
of a comma.
I specifically meant bone length (=flute
length).
But not to flog a tired dog, so thanks for the chat. I would love to see
the artifact in person. And any time you run across anything about lithophones
(or phonoliths), do not hesitate to run to your keyboard! Best personal
regards
-- Tom Tuttle
Jun 25 1997
From: Bob Fink
To:
t.tuttle@mail.asic.csuohio.edu
.
Dear Tom:
You'll have to go to Slovenia, I'm afraid, to
see the original bone.
I do agree the youth are destroying their
hearing.
A copy of my book on the origin of music
might
be in the Cleveland public library (as "The Universality of Music"
or "The Origin of Music"). In that book I have large tracts devoted
to Greek music, modes, descending scales, et al. There may be copies as
well (if not in Cleveland) at Columbus Publ Lib., Ohio State Univ. Lib.,
and U. of Cinncinati -- in case you really want to look it up.
Rest assured I am among those who believe
that
cultural conditioning represents the fundamental means of human learning.
We are virtually clean slate-boards when we are born and society writes
us as it will.
But, that said, there still is a small base of
natural influences upon our senses, including hearing, which I believe
affect the development of the arts to greater or lesser degrees.
We are looking at Neanderthal ears -- which
likely
were like ours -- but we may never know. And we are looking at 43,ooo years
ago -- that may as well be another planet!!
So the conclusions I've drawn are really based
more on other issues than just on this bone, regarding any natural basis
to the diatonic scale. Unless this bone flute is meant to reflect some
unknown prehistoric pentatonic with semitones in it, then I tend to believe
it may be evidence of natural acoustic influences pushing for the diatonic.
But this bone is not proof -- just a probability of a reasonable magnitude.
We could only know for sure if they ever find the rest of that flute --
or an intact one somewhere else. ---Bob
.
Jul 08 1997
From: langley
<langley@fenetre.co.uk>
To:
greenwich
Dear Bob Fink,
I have just read through your entries re:
origins
of music and ancient flutes, etc. There is so much I want to ask you and,
I hope, contribute to your symposium.
But first may I ask: are you aware of the
'feline
carved from reindeer horn' on page 7 of the 1962 edition of the Larousse
Encyclopaedia of Prehistoric and Ancient Art? It is supposed to be
from the Franco-Cantabrian Palaeolithic age, and the 5 visible holes in
it are claimed to be symbolic spear and arrow holes. As a wind-instrument
maker, it is obvious to me that this is a wind instrument, probably a vessel-flute.
I am in fact a maker of pottery ocarinas. An
academic friend of mine researched ancient ocarinas in South America and
found many unattributed vessel-flutes in museums. Ignorance of the musical
nature of some ancient objects is widespread.
Now one reason I am contacting you is to ask
if you have considered whether your flute fragment might have been end-stopped
- i.e. a vessel-flute. If it was, then the pitch-changes produced by the
holes will be completely different from those of a straight open-ended
flute or whistle. If you have considered the possibility and rejected it,
fine.
But if I can help at all concerning the
extraordinarily
complex science of hole-size, hole-position and interior form of vessel
as these variables relate to pitch, then please let me know. I have conducted
many experiments over the past 20 years, and know how little I know. But
what little I know is at your service.
May I say how thrilling it is to find someone
looking seriously at the origins of music? It's almost as if there has
been some sort of taboo on the subject.
Yours melodically, -- John
Langley.
Jul 08 1997
From: Bob Fink
To:
langley@fenetre.co.uk
Dear John:
I haven't heard of nor seen the horn you write
about. I would love to see a picture of it, even measurements as well,
if they are available. My fax # is 306-244 0795. I doubt if the Larousse
book you mention is in our library. But I'll check. (I own only the Larousse
Int'l Illus. Dictionary.)
What is "obvious" to us (I am
frequently
reminded) must be carefully examined for bias. Even whether this ancient
bone is a flute has been denied. To me, it's obviously a flute. But I've
been forced to defend the obvious as if it wasn't obvious. Perhaps the
horn could be denied as a flute as well, unless we can defend the obvious
there as well.
As far as the open-closed ends issue goes,
Match
#2 in the essay assumes an open-ended flute. Match # 1 in the essay considers
that it could have been a closed flute.
The normal length of a femur is quite long. So
we felt it was reasonable to assume that it was not part of a short ocarina
type instrument. However, it COULD have been. We'll never know unless they
find the rest of the object.
Where I deal with issues of "could have
been" is where I tried my best to obtain reasonably accurate probabilities
for certain statements in this essay.
What I have held as conclusive in the essay is
that the holes are consistent with those of a diatonic scale scale (IF
the flute is long enough).
What I held as probable is that the hole
spacing
reflects not so much an ocarina or 4 or 5 note scale with a half-tone (or
other pitch if it was a short flute), but a larger scale, likely parallel
to the diatonic scale. I can't conclude this, but hold it probable for
reasons examined in some of the correspondence (note: there are 3 web pages
of it) and especially in
http://www.greenwych.ca/natbasis.htm.
There I pointed to the widespread
cross-cultural
fact of pentatonic and 7-note diatonic scales in our own history (and the
acoustic basis for these scales) as justification for the probabilities
being higher regarding the Neanderthal bone matching a diatonic rather
than matching a more obscure or hitherto unknown scale.
I held match #2 as probable (open-end minor
scale)
over match #1 (major, closed end), because removing marrow is easier when
the ends are broken off (rather than drilling holes when marrow is still
in the bone, and sucking it out). And also because the dimensions of the
fit are closer to an acoustic scale than the dimensions of match #1.
In the intro/summary of the essay, I had to
make
decisions about all the other pitch-related factors you mentioned ["the
extraordinarily complex science of hole-size, hole-position and interior
form of vessel"] and as you read, I felt they were real factors,
but possibly cancelling each other out and likely not significant enough
to cancel our conclusion of a pitch-match to the diatonic (again PROVIDED
the bone was from 32-38cm long).
Besides, how on earth could one measure
these
effects without the entire bone? Having said that, I and my partner, Mike
Finley, nevertheless would be interested in receiving copies of the work
and experiments you've done (or a summary of it) on these matters as we
certainly have developed a need to understand this ever since we embarked
on this essay.
Someday, I expect a replica will be made of
the
old bone (43,400 yrs old, current estimate). At various lengths, it will
be blown, and we'll see what the pitches really are. The best I could do
was to simply work with the hole spacings translated onto a straight irish
flute (tin whistle) barrel.
And you're right: It IS "as if there has
been some sort of taboo on the subject." I think there actually has
been -- especially by those ethnomusicologists who are most prone to downplaying
that music has undergone "evolution." They dislike that idea
as it leads to what they fear most: That non-literate societies' music
will be also be branded "primitive" or judged "inferior"
against some evolutionary time-line of progressive change toward "final
perfection." They prefer -- sometimes fanatically -- to "judge"
a people's music only (or mostly) on its own culturally-internal terms,
and avoid comparisons to any other cultures' music, especially to
"western"
musical scales. I try to point out that this Neanderthal find makes the
diatonic (if that's what the Neanderthals had) NON-WESTERN!! But to little
avail.
Anyway, the word "origin"
implies an
evolution and comparisons that they'd rather resist; And they also add:
"why bother with origins? It's all speculative and we weren't there,
and can never really know anyway." Of course, I've never agreed with
all of that. --Bob Fink
.
LETTER TO A MUSICOLOGY
DISCUSSION LIST
JUNE 19,
1998
It isn't true that
I'm "out
to prove" a particular case. The real characterization is this: I
have discovered very satisfactory answers to questions that first plagued
me as a youngster first studying music. Namely:
* Why wasn't the 7-note scale I had to practice
(in all keys) simply divided equally (in terms of frequencies) like ALMOST
everything else designed by humanity (equal spacings of streets, blocks,
sidewalk tiles, telephone poles; windows in buildings, inches, feet, yards,
hours, minutes, meters, meters, millimeters, scales of temperature and
weight -- ad infinitum? Why was the musical scale so different?
* Answers I received raised other issues: I was
told the octave did get divided by equidistant halftones. But why
12, instead of the usual 5 or l0 as in our thousands-year-old number system?
And why 7 notes in the diatonic instead of five or ten? And why wasn't
the pentatonic 5-note scale also equally divided, instead of having the
two large tone-and-half gaps where the 3rd and 7ths could fit?
* Being told as a kid the piano simply was
made
out of the "older" pentatonic (black notes) mixed with the 7-note
white diatonic scale seemed at first to have some sense, but I learned
that scheme was an Aesop-like fable, it wasn't really the motivation for
that arrangement anyway, and later made no sense, when temperament was
considered.
Looking into the world of music and
musicology
failed to provide any answers that didn't raise more questions. I finally
sought answers outside music, namely in physics, acoustics, history, cultural
conditioning (psychology), physiology & biology (of the ear); esthetics,
and anthropology. It was then that I began to discover (NOT set
out fixedly to "prove") that the world of musicology seemed largely
divorced from other disciplines, and in fact, the answers I gleaned from
the outside disciplines reinforced each other regarding acoustics and evolutionary
cultural processes -- while at the same time these disciplines made musicology
and ethnomusicology look like some kind of archaic alchemist's anachronism
rather than a science or "ology" or a real search for truth.
Indeed, the resistance I found among
musicologists
revealed it was not facts, but biased politics, designed to defend the
world of 20th century "serious" music composing at all costs,
that motivated musicology to a degree that was alarming to me.
Let's look at the answers I found specifically,
and the issues posed to me: To wit:
KILMER'S OLDEST SONG
ANALYSIS
Why is Kilmer's analysis of the oldest song as
diatonic and harmonic (thirds) not "convincing"?
In my reading of Kilmer's analysis of the
Hurrian
song, her diatonic assumptions made consistent sense with all the rest
of the data. Sometimes I think that many musicologists fail to appreciate
what the scientific method is all about.
My view of this is best explained by analogy
to astronomy: Please read this -- it is not going to be obscure
or difficult.
When planet Uranus's orbit was noticed to be
wobbly and doing "bumps and grinds" -- these were inexplicable
until an assumption was made that another planet must exist nearby
that gravitationally caused Uranus to be pulled slightly out of orbit.
Based on the changes exhibited by Uranus's orbit, the wobble, etc., this
imaginary undiscovered planet's mass, nearness, speed in orbit, approximate
location and perhaps other characteristics, was able to be calculated.
In other words, the planet Neptune was
"theoretically
discovered" by deduction, although not by actual sighting of it. No
one could think of any other reason for Uranus' strange orbital behavior,
but despite that, of course, the assumption could still have been
wrong. That's why I say it was "theoretically" discovered. All
they had was a mental "model" (not a real planet yet) but
it explained all the known facts and orbital deviations. If the planet
Neptune had never been sighted, it would still be reasonable to now posit
that it existed.
Without the above calculations that helped
indicate
where to look for it in the sky, discovering it in the night sky by chance
observations would have been like finding a lost penny in the ocean.
The assumptions led the way to finally finding
it in reality. This is part of the scientific method -- namely, if an assumption
leads to an explanation or model of all the facts, including facts hitherto
inexplicable, then "circularly" speaking, the assumption has
legitimately gained evidence for its now being considered true or at least
"convincing" (to all but those with some other reason for
resisting that conviction) and the assumption would ordinarily be accepted
as likely.
What Kilmer appeared to me to do was
virtually
the same. She make some assumptions or deductions that notes were paired
in harmonies. When she did this, she ended up discovering that the result
produced thirds (mostly) and that the number of syllables of the words
to the song ended up nicely matching the number of notes (or thirds) used.
[Hopefully I haven't misinterpreted or over-simplified her work.]
In any event, the chances of finding such
a match of notes with syllables (without it reflecting the reality of ancient
musical intentions) are staggeringly small.
Now here's a
choice: If
we have an assumption that, when pursued, gives us a song where note numbers
match syllables and the harmonies are thirds (like English "gymel")
and to top it all off -- all in the diatonic mode -- do we say it's all
an immense coincidence? Or do we say that the assumption explains
virtually all the facts, and therefore, is likely true? In my book, that's
"convincing." Unless one has some other facts or reasons to cite,
to deny that the diatonic mode existed that long ago.
Unfortunately,
unlike the
astronomy business, in the Neanderthal flute business, the rest of the
flute hasn't been found. But we have a piece of it, and it explains many
other facts and it matches work in other disciplines (Trehub, Kilmer, acoustics,
history, etc.)
Unlike a "theoretical" conclusion
about
diatonic evolution, this bone fragment now offers, if not proof, then a
physical non-theoretical evidence of great significance to the case
already made elsewhere.
ACOUSTICS OBEYED BY
MUSICIANS KNOWING
NOTHING OF ACOUSTICS
Couple the above with the world of acoustics,
in which the historic progress of the diatonic scale mirrors numerous laws
of acoustics -- so numerous as to be a staggering miracle of coincidence
if one insists that the effect of acoustics on the human ear had little
or nothing to do with it.
Below are the parallels between the scale and
acoustics -- accomplished by musicians who knew nothing about the match
to acoustic laws they made through history. Just look at these!
* If you write out the overtones of these three
notes (Tonic, 4th & 5th) and string out the most audible ones, you
will get the major scale (with a few weak overtones left over).
Example in C (listing the different
overtones
in the series in order of loudness as overtones):
..........Tonic
C --- Overtones are: C, G, E, Bb
..........Fifth
G ---- Overtones are: G, D, B, F
..........Fourth
F -- Overtones are: F, C, A, Eb
* If you substitute the three weakest ones (the
3rd, 6th and 7th notes of the scale) with another three notes (which includes
these even weaker next overtones), and which are flatter, you get the
minor scale. (The 6th note is strongest of the three because it forms
no semitones with adjacent notes in the scale.).
* If you leave these two -- the 3rd and 7th
notes
-- out altogether, you get what's commonly called the "Chinese"
scale-- or the piano's 'black notes' pentatonic 5-note scale --
found also in Africa, old Scottish and Irish folk music, and elsewhere
(and here we often find 3rds and sevenths as "pien" or "passing
over" tones [Orient] or other fill-in, "becoming" or
"leading"
tones [Scottish] in their pentatonic scales).
* Because these overtones are very weak, they
were the last to come into the scale historically, and how to tune them
was a matter of historic uncertainty -- and many people often tuned them
somewhere between minor and major (in the 'cracks' on the piano), producing
what are known as "blue" or neutral notes.
* The most audible overtones of a note all
have simple ratios, like 2:1 (octave), or 2:3 (fifth note of scale),
or 3:4 (4th note of the scale). In fact these three notes are present
in virtually every musical scale known on earth. We must conclude a
relationship exists between low ratios and what has been considered as
worthy of being included in scales.
* The overtones of any one note all add up
to its major chord, when played out loud rather than as overtones.
* Finally, in harmony, chords historically
came
to accompany notes in the melody (witness most folk songs from all lands)
based on the tonic fourth or fifth, depending which of these originally
gave rise (by its overtones) to that note in the scale: Thus, you harmonize
tonic (say C), with c major, D with G major, E with C major, F with F major,
G with G major, A with F major, B with G major and C again with C major.
(Try it on the piano with any known folk melody.)
This is the fundamental schemata for the
harmonization
of almost all popular and folk music.
Chords were evolved in early medieval
periods
following the advent of drone counterpoint, which created a host of accidental
harmonies (and dissonances-in-passing) of all sorts, a very serendipity-like
process. Eventually, with time, the most desired chords chosen or which
emerged most-used from this process (without musicians having awareness
of the parallels they were making to acoustics -- an unknown science at
that time) ended up being the chords of the tonic, dominant (5th) and subdominant
(4th) (with variations for the minor key).
Dissonant chords were deliberately added as a
contrast to help the consonances more powerfully stand out, mirroring a
process found all through nature and other arts and disciplines: An esthetic
based on the interplay of polar opposites (very Hegelian/Marxist by the
way) namely: consonance/dissonance; male/female; up/down; left/right; loud/soft;
bright/dim; sweet/sour; high/low; major/minor; plus/minus; sharp/dull;
old/young; beginning/end; negative/positive; fast/slow; -- the list is
virtually endless.
Basically, however, we are more
discussing
scale-evolution, rather than music made with the use of scales. (The
distinction is clearer when one sees that the "scale of primary colours"
on the spectrum or colour-wheel or palette is not the same as a painting
made using the palette.)
Clearly, a "natural" scale is not
used
without contrasts to it, or wirthout effects of culture, conditioning,
and esthetic habits -- all of which will modify its use in music-making.
It's naturalness is only what explains its historic evolution and ability
to spread across cultures through time.
DISSONANCE IN THE
THEATRE
Regarding the common use of dissonance in
theatre
and movies to express a variety of emotions (terror, suspense, sinister
tension, etc., -- by the way, usually all emotions of discontent or
emotional "discord") -- this is not nearly as acceptable
when removed from the meaning of the drama. Indeed, a lot of it
could be considered as being more "sound effects" than music
-- like crash, explosion or breaking glass sounds -- which, acceptable
to the public in context, are almost universally dismissed as being
"music"
for listening (by the same public) when the sounds are asked to be enjoyed
outside of the literary context.
CONCLUSION
If none of this argumentation is
"convincing,"
then how does one explain :
* So much coincidence (acoustics, et al); and
/or
* Corroborating findings from so many
different
disciplines; or
* That something which explains virtually all
known facts is still subject to being dismissed -- when in any other scientific
pursuit (for example, physics or biology), any theoretical model which
can explain all or most of the facts is routinely accepted as state-of-the-art
knowledge?
What historic or present facts can be cited that
my model fails to explain?
--Bob Fink
.
Aug 22-23,
1999
To
greenwich
I just finished your article on the applicability
of the found bone to the musical scale. As a non-musician layman, I found
it all a little too complex for easy understanding. However, your overlay
of the bone to an actual flute was pretty convincing.
My question: are you suggesting that
Neanderthals
had full flutes, or just a 4-[note] musical scale? It looks to me as if
the bone is flared at both ends -- wouldn't this make it difficult to add
more notes to the scale? What do you think such a flute would sound like?
I'm very curious as to how such an instrument would actually sound... any
guidance?
-- John Harlow Byrne
JHByrne@aol.com
To JHByrne@aol.com
Dear John:
The paleontologists at various museums have
indicated
that a juvenile femur could have been long enough to accommodate a full
scale. Was this particular bone long enough? I have seen an unbroken
bone which similarly appears to flare, but then the flare straightens
out a few inches later (or visually disappears when the bone is rotated
a bit), and goes on to be longer than one would have thought if our only
visual information was if it had been broken at the flare.
I'm not at all suggesting this is the case, only
that it is possible according to some experts. However, the Neanderthal
bone also could likely have been a 4 or 5-note flute, and shorter, as the
flare indicates to many people. This is the position regarding length taken
by Turk, the finder of the bone.
In either case, the pattern of holes is
"diatonic"
or matches a do, re, mi set of pitch distances between holes -- which is
the basic limit of conclusive viewpoint in my essay.
To make these holes play in tune would
require
the additional assumption of a mouthpiece extension making the entire bone
flute long enough. As the bone is broken, there is no proof of an extension
other than the statistical improbability that, by chance, the holes
were distanced like that -- yet NOT meant to produce the diatonic
pitches. These spacings are like a tell-tale "fingerprint" as
they are not equally spaced note-holes. So I make the assumption of a mouthpiece
extension on grounds of a greater likelihood of that being the case, i.e.,
to avoid accepting the spacings as pure chance. We likely will never
know for sure.
I don't recall ever consciously hearing a bone
flute, but I'm told the sound would be similar to a wood, metal, or bamboo
flute, or other bone-type flutes. Of course, some discerning ears may be
able to tell blindfolded the difference. My main concern has been the issue
of relative note-pitches.
Bob
Fink
To greenwich (in part):
Well, I'm a fan of the 'try it out' school of
archaeology, followed by White and O'Neil. That is, if you think a cave
bear bone would work, why not get hold of a Kodiak bear femur of around
the same size, and make one? Then, you could find out by trial and error
whether there was such a mouth extension, whether the holes were put there
for hand comfort or musical tone, and so forth. It would also lend a LOT
of weight to your arguments, as people (such as myself) tend to put a lot
of unconscious weight of belief in what they can see and touch, as opposed
to what they merely read about. Prove to the world that the cave bear flute
works.
John Harlow Byrne
JHByrne@aol.com
To JHByrne@aol.com
Dear John:
That proof has been provided by Ivan Turk.
My
work is on the Internet, but unfortunately, Ivan Turk has not put his work
fully on the net. But his now-published monograph on the bone includes
the making of a similar bone flute (without an extension) and a simple
slit for a mouthpiece. They were able to prove that it could produce musical
tones with simply blowing through it.
You wrote: "Aren't we making an
assumption
that the holes should be in tune? After all, presumably this flute was
made a long time ago, perhaps by a different species... why should they
have the same ideas of what sounds are in good tune?"
I do make that assumption. Here's why:
Turk's people added no extension to the flute.
As a result, it didn't play do, re mi, etc., but a more chromatic series
of notes, matching no widely found scale known. Therefore, if we assume
NO extension, then the spacings of the holes being a match to the distinctive
spacings of a do, re, mi series of tones has to be considered a coincidence
of vast proportions (about 1 in 600 according to the Appendix in my
essay).
It's important to note that the unequal spacings
of any four consecutive holes on a diatonic flute are like a tell-tale
fingerprint, and would not be produced that particular way for any other
reason known.
Coincidence is something I would rather not
assume
nor accept. It appears far likelier to me to reject "chance"
as an explanation, and yes, to assume instead, as you say I do, that they
were meant to be "in tune," which then requires the assumption
of an extension -- but no longer requires believing in coincidence regarding
the spacings.
You wrote: "Here's another
question...
I know that the flute has been dated at 40-63 kya... why the huge span
of years? Those are a pretty important span of years, after all... and
5,000 years in one direction or another might be the crucial difference
in determining whether this flute was a Neandertal creation, or a trade
item from Homo Sapiens populations."
Turk's monograph and the work of Prof.
Bonnie
Blackwell went into this as well. As I are not an archaeologist, but merely
are a musicologist, I suggest you refer that question to Blackwell, as
well as the matter of whether a form of glue would have been likely:
You wrote: "Perhaps this bone flute
had
no such extension... then wouldn't it sound like an ocarina (more like
a whistle than a flute)? Looking at it in a practical standpoint, you're
suggesting a 10" flute... but here's the rub: Neandertal typically
moved around a LOT, requiring that all his implements be rugged, and able
to withstand the rigors of travel (notable exceptions being the Shanidar
inhabitants?). A 10" flute, particularly one built in two pieces,
would be fragile. Further, unless our maker had figured out how to boil
down hooves for glue, how is he going to attach the pieces together?"
I think Blackwell told me that forms of
effective
"glue" were simple enough to have been discovered by the most
rudimentary peoples. But on these matters, I am no expert. I do know that
I have been able to jam two cylindrical items into each other (like drinking
tumblers) and even despite no glue being used, I was never, ever
able to get them apart again!!
In the case of 2 bones, even clay could be
sufficient
to fill any air gaps to make the thing playable. [It also makes the bone
flute more transportable (in two pieces) like an Al Capone machine gun],
requiring only more clay at the next "jam" session. It also means
that the mouthpiece is a smaller more convenient diameter for fitting the
mouth than the cumbersome bone without an extension
mouthpiece.
You can reach Prof. Bonnie Blackwell now at:
Bonnie.A.B.Blackwell@williams.edu
Best wishes, Bob Fink
.
Click here
for continuation of general correspondence. The Correspondence
below only relates to:
* Whether the bone is a flute or
made
by chance effects
* The recent find of 9,ooo year
old flutes
including a fully-playable one.
.
.
THE
FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS IN SCIENCE NEWS, APRIL 4,
'98.
(My reply follows the
article)
DOUBTS AIRED OVER
NEANDERTHAL BONE
'FLUTE'
(Science News, Vol. 153,
April 4,
98, p.215)
By B.
Bower
Amid much media fanfare, a research team in
1996
trumpeted an ancient, hollowed out bear bone pierced on one side with four
complete or partial holes as the earliest known musical instrument. The
perforated bone, found in an Eastern European cave, represents a flute
made and played by Neandertals at least 43,000 years ago, the scientists
contended.
Now it's time to stop the music, say two
archaeologists
who examined the purported flute last spring. On closer inspection, the
bone appears to have been punctured and gnawed by the teeth of an animal
-- perhaps a wolf -- as it stripped the limb of meat and marrow, report
April Nowell and Philip G. Chase, both of the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia.
"The bone was heavily chewed by one
or more
carnivores, creating holes that became more rounded due to natural processes
after burial," Nowell says. "It provides very weak evidence for
the origins of [Stone Age] music." Nowell presented the new analysis
at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society in Seattle last
week.
Nowell and Chase examined the bone with the
permission
of its discoverer, Ivan Turk of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences in Ljubljana
(S.N.: 11/23/96, p. 328). Turk knows of their conclusion but still views
the specimen as a flute.
Both open ends of the thighbone contain clear
signs of gnawing by carnivores, Nowell asserts. Wolves and other animals
typically bite off nutrient-rich tissue at the ends of limb bones and extract
available marrow. If Neandertals had hollowed out the bone and fashioned
holes in it, animals would not have bothered to gnaw it, she says.
Complete and partial holes on the bone's shaft
were also made by carnivores, says Nowell. Carnivores typically break open
bones with their scissor like cheek teeth. Uneven bone thickness and signs
of wear along the borders of the holes, products of extended burial in
the soil, indicate that openings made by cheek teeth were at first less
rounded and slightly smaller, the researchers hold.
Moreover, the simultaneous pressure of an
upper
and lower tooth produced a set of opposing holes, one partial and one complete,
they maintain.
Prehistoric, carnivore-chewed bear bones in
two
Spanish caves display circular punctures aligned in much the same way as
those on the Slovenian find. In the March Antiquity, Francesco d'Errico
of the Institute of Quaternary Prehistory and Geology in Talence, France,
and his colleagues describe the Spanish bones.
In a different twist, Bob Fink, an independent
musicologist in Canada, has reported on the Internet
(http://www.greenwych.ca/fl-compl.htm)
that the spacing of the two complete and two partial holes on the back
of the Slovenian bone conforms to musical notes on the diatonic (do, re,
mi. . .) scale.
The bone is too short to incorporate the
diatonic
scale's seven notes, counter Nowell and Chase. Working with Pennsylvania
musicologist Robert Judd, they estimate that the find's 5.7-inch length
is less than half that needed to cover the diatonic spectrum.
The recent meeting presentation is "a
most
convincing analysis," comments J. Desmond Clark of the University
of California, Berkeley, although it's possible that Neandertals blew single
notes through carnivore-chewed holes in the bone.
"We can't exclude that
possibility,"
Nowell responds. "But it's a big leap of faith to conclude that this
was an intentionally constructed flute."
.
TO THE EDITOR,
SCIENCE NEWS
The doubts raised by Nowell and Chase (April
4th, DOUBTS AIRED OVER NEANDERTHAL BONE 'FLUTE') saying the
Neanderthal
Bone is not a flute have these weaknesses:
The alignment of the holes -- all in a row, and
all of equivalent diameter, appear to be contrary to most teeth marks,
unless some holes were made independently by several animals. The latter
case boggles the odds for the holes ending up being in line. It also would
be strange that animals homed in on this one bone in a cave full of bones,
where no reports of similarly chewed bones have been made.
This claim is harder to believe when it is
calculated
that chances for holes to be arranged, by chance, in a pattern that matches
the spacings of 4 notes of a diatonic flute, are only one in hundreds to
occur .
The analysis I made on the Internet
(http://www.greenwych.ca/fl-compl.htm)
regarding the bone being capable of matching 4 notes of the do, re, mi
(diatonic) scale included the possibility that the bone was extended with
another bone "mouthpiece" sufficiently long to make the notes
sound fairly in tune.
While Nowell says "it's a big leap of
faith
to conclude that this was an intentionally constructed flute," it's
a bigger leap of faith to accept the immense coincidence that animals blindly
created a hole-spacing pattern with holes all in line (in what clearly
looks like so many other known bone flutes which are made to play notes
in a step-wise scale) and blindly create a pattern that also could play
a known acoustic scale if the bone was extended. That's too much coincidence
for me to accept. It is more likely that it is an intentionally made flute,
although admittedly with only the barest of clues regarding its original
condition.
The 5.7 inch figure your article quoted
appears
erroneous, as the centimeter scale provided by its discoverer, Ivan Turk,
indicates the artifact is about 4.3 inches long. However, the unbroken
femur would originally have been about 8.5 inches, and the possibility
of an additional hole or two exists, to complete a full scale, perhaps
aided by the possible thumbhole. However, the full diatonic spectrum is
not required as indicated by Nowell and Chase: It could also have been
a simpler (but still diatonic) 4 or 5 note scale. Such short-scale flutes
are plentiful in homo sapiens history.
Finally, a worn-out or broken flute bone can
serve as a scoop for manipulation of food, explaining why animals might
chew on its ends later. It is also well-known that dogs chase and maul
even sticks, despite their non-nutritional nature. What appears "weak"
is not the case for a flute, but the case against it by Nowell and Chase.
Note: Begining September 5, 2000, access
to
the full text of that journal will be available only to institutional and
individual subscribers. However, the
salient
portions of the article are quoted below.
[Otte is director of the museum of
Préhistoire,
Université de Liège, 7, place du XX Août, Bât.A1,
4000 Liège, Belgium. 27 IV 99, and he now discounts the view that
the bone is a natural product.]
Otte writes in part:
"Chase and Nowell's...rejection of
the
interpretation of a Mousterian flute discovered in Slovenia raises serious
questions about which CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY readers should be
informed.
"The opportunity for close
examination
of the original instrument, knowledge of the sedimentary context of the
discovery, and the results of numerous comparative experiments and studies
were recently made available to a group of scientists by the discoverers
in Slovenia. At this meeting I became convinced of the opposite of the
opinion expressed by Chase (who was also present)....
"Finally, the instrument consists of
not two perforations (as Chase and Nowell indicate) but five ("like
five fingers of a hand"): four on one side, one on the opposite side.
...If there was gnawing by carrion eaters (which seems to be the case for
this bone as for most of the others of this level), it was concentrated
at the ends of the bone and, in any case, superimposed on traces of human
activity. The fifth hole appears at the base of the opposite side, at the
natural location of the thumb.
"....The capacity for symbolization is
everywhere present in the Middle Paleolithic and sufficient to make the
presence and use of musical instruments in this period at least a logical
possibility (Otte 1996). The problem, then, lies in the usual double problematic
of archeological nearsightedness and of the more current
taphonomy.....
"We must beware of received ideas:
they
inflict lasting damage on both scientific thought and scientific literature,
especially in the human sciences. The idea of Mousterian ineptitude is
one of the deepest and one of the most perverse because it reassures us
about ourselves. The destiny of the Mousterian flute discovered at Divje
Babe was preordained: it could be only disputable and doubtful, a priori.
We have seen how disastrous the application of "apriorisms" in
the human sciences has been for recent European
history."
From a letter I wrote to a
correspondent
April 26, 1998:
As to the Science News write-up, Nowell and
Chase
suggest a wolf as a possible carniviore making the holes. If you have a
copy of Turk's monograph, it shows, as you say, the presence on site of
boring tools, and the experiments made by Turk's colleage Guiliano Bastiani
who successfully produced similar holes in fresh bone using tools of the
type found at the site (pp. 176-78 Turk).
They also wrote (pp. 171-75) that:
* The center-to-center distances of the holes
in the artifact are smaller than that of the tooth span of most carnivores.
The smallest tooth spans they found were 45mm, and the holes on the bone
are 35mm;
* Holes bitten are usually at the ends of bones
rather than in the center of them;
* There is an absence of dents, scratches and
other signs of gnawing and counter-bites on the artifact;
* The center-to-center distances do not
correspond
to the spans of carnivores which could pierce the bone;
* The diameters of the holes are greater than
that produceable by a wolf exerting the greatest jaw pressure it had available
-- in any event, they say it's doubtful that a wolf's jaws would be strong
enough (like a hyena's) to have made the holes, especially in the thickest
part of the wall of ther artifact.
To account for the possible difficulty about
the tooth spans not matching a wolf or other carnivores, Nowell and Chase
appear to mention "one or more" carnivores. But neither they,
nor Turk, make mention of the line-up of the holes, which would be remarkable
if they were made by more than one carnivore, which apparently they'd have
to accept MUST have been so, based on the center-spans.
If you accept one or more carnivores, then
why
did they target one bone, when there were so many other bones in the cave
site? Only about 4.5% of the juvenile bones were chewed or had holes, according
to Turk (p. 117).
My arguments over the year have pointed out
the
mathematical odds of this occuring by chance are too difficult to believe.
When Current Archeology wrote to me April
7 (a
year ago, 1997), indicating that the magazine "consulted the experts,
and they say that the holes do not show the micro-wear that is normal in
flutes. Instead it is suggested that they may be tooth marks of a wild
animal and the positioning of the holes may therefore be purely random,"
I replied to "Current Archeolgy" on April 7, '97: "The Appendix
in [my] essay proves that the number of ways a set of 4 random holes could
be differently spaced (to produce an audibly different set of tones) are
680 ways. The chances a random set would match the existing fragment's
spacing [which also could produce a match to four] diatonic notes of the
scale are therefore only one in hundreds. If you also allowed the holes
to be out of line, or to be less than 4 holes as well, then the number
available randomly is augmented into only one in many thousands. And yet
randomness and animal bites would still be acceptable [to your experts]
account for holes being in line that [could also] play notes of the
scale...?"
In order to appreciate the notion of accident
or chance to create a set of 4 holes that are in line, here is a rough
calculation of how many different ways the 4 holes on the Neanderthal bone
could be out-of-line, which I think can be easily followed without any
math ability other than grade-school multiplication skills:
First, what do we mean by "out of
line"?
Using the expected accuracy of ancient
crafts-persons
to create a hole in a chosen position, I think few would argue with a tolerance
of +/-1/4 (or 1/2) of a hole diameter. Also, I think this amount out of
line, or more, would be visibly noticeable to any observer as out of line.
Procedure
(for a rough, user-friendly
calculation):
If you move only one hole up or down a bit --
say, by about +/-1/4 of a hole diameter (about 1/4 inch) -- without moving
the hole left or right-- then you can repeat at least 10 such moves
for that one hole (until you move up over the bone, down the back and come
back to the original position). Each move would be a case of throwing the
holes (taken as a whole set ) visibly out of line even though the
remaining 3 holes are still in line with each other. So by moving only
one hole we can, so far, get 10 ways to misalign the set of 4 holes as
a set.
Now, if you moved this first hole at the same
time that you also moved a second hole up or down (now
throwing
two holes out of line from the remaining two) then there
would now be 100 different positions available that would be visibly out
of line with the remaining two holes -- or 10 positions for the first hole
times 10 for the second hole.
You can see the formula emerging from this
for
all 4 holes being out of line with each other:
There would be 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 -- namely,
10,ooo
different ways to provide that bone with 4 holes, each out-of-line with
the others except in one case, all without producing any two bones
alike.
This means the odds (so far in this calculation)
against that set of 4 holes being in line by
accident are 10,ooo to 1.
[Sort of like
watching a Las
Vegas gambling machine's 4 symbol wheels (with plums, cherries, et al
on them), rolling up or down, hoping (usually in vain) to get a lined-up
match of 4 alike. Very similar slim
odds.]
However, we can also move
the holes
left and right too -- which is the way Mike Finley & I produced the
680 other "scale spacings" that would not match do-re-mi-fa,
and which represents our earlier calculation of horizontal odds in my essay's
Appendix:
That means, not only can we get the
diatonic
set of hole-spacings out of line in 10,ooo vertical ways, but if
the holes were horizontally spaced any other way --
say, equally spaced -- then that would be another 10,ooo ways to misalign
that equally-spaced scale (or horizontal spacing of holes) -- again,
all without producing any two bones alike.
Again, the arithmetic emerging is clear: There
are 680 ways to differently space the holes left and right; and about 10,ooo
ways to misalign the holes up or down (for each spacing or scale).
Or, 10,ooo x 680, which equals 6,8oo,ooo
ways
(or about 7 million ways) that a set of 4 holes could appear anywhere
on that size bone without ANY of the ways being a repeat of any other
way,
within a tolerance of +/-1/4th of a hole diameter.
Here is an example of a bone that would
represent
just one of those many ways for four holes to be placed:
Check this arithmetic with anyone.
The figure would change depending on the
tolerance
we chose, above, about what constitutes a minimum amount to move a hole
to consider it in a new position. For the +/-1/4 of a hole diameter tolerance,
the figure is about 7 million.
The result is this conclusion:
For randomness to produce such an
object
as was actually found, to match a possible do-re-mi-fa flute, the probability
would be only about 1 chance in 7 million.
This is a conservative figure, because
this also happened on a bone whose hole diameters are very similar;
a bone that was hollow, not solid; on a bone that was very
cylindrical,
not like a skull or jaw bone, and so on. What further odds do we add for
all that and for each of the other conditions all being present for this
bone, like proximity to a fireplace; absence of marrow, absence of other
gnawing marks, no match to any known predator's tooth-span able to pierce
the bone, and so on??
Again, while each item alone
could
be shown to also have a possible carnivore or chance origin, all of them
taken together, as a whole set of circumstances, cannot be
likely at all, as chance.
If we can apply taphonomy to this bone, and
when
taphonomic experts disagree, why exclude applying a math
or probablility study like this one?
[Abridged -- And with which
I substantially
agree -- B. F.]
Bob:
1. It should be made absolutely clear
that you are calculating the odds of getting a straight line by randomly
punching holes in a bone. And also that this is not actually a calculation
of the odds of natural processes producing the straight line, because natural
processes are not strictly random.
2. Discuss natural processes to attempt some
justification of the simple random model as a useful exercise. We cannot
know all the mechanisms at work in nature..... Perhaps introduce
the Great Square Jawed Diatonic Sloth as an [extreme] example. [Ed.:
An invention of Mike's: A Sloth whose tooth-span pattern is in a straight
line and matches the spacings of a diatonic sequence of musical notes --
and who goes around biting diatonic flutes into existence for lunch].
Indicate on the other hand that the most obvious [and less imaginative]
mechanisms known to palaeontologists and archaeologists don't [usually]
produce straight lines. Allude to the multiple bite hypothesis, stating
that [almost] everyone thinks it unlikely.
3. Conclude that while your random model
[above]
is just that--- a drastically simplified model-- it nonetheless provides
a rough "order of magnitude" of the kind of odds likely involved
in producing a straight line of holes [spaced diatonically] without a guiding
hominid hand.
4. Coincidences do happen.... Note that since
you can't quantify all the real world factors, you can't in good conscience
assert that the odds you calculate would allow one to set up a proper statistical
"confidence level" in regard to the conclusion that the bone
is an artefact.... Call for more research.
I think all these qualifications would actually
strengthen your case.
I still don't really like attaching seemingly
exact numbers to things when there are unknown factors at work that might
mean that the real numbers are very different.... So, make clear the limitations
of the calculation and don't claim it proves your case. -- Mike
Letter from
member of Swedish
Institute of Biomusicology:
Bob
...I have not seen your argument against
d'Errico
- I guess that's the publication in Antiquity arguing against the
"flute" on the basis of thousands of bones, some with holes in
them, yes?
I read it and was appalled at the bias that
pervaded
their write-up (and wrote Turk about it). Their bone collection convinced
me in favor of Turk, because the one thing they maintain studious silence
about is the linear arrangement of the holes - they do not have a single
bone among those thousands which comes even close to the striking linear
alignment of Turk's holes (I gather from what you say that this is part
of your argument against them), and not to discuss this central and crucial
issue is just bad scholarship and bad science.
But {there are} academic theories about the
status
of Neanderthals...at stake, and so they fight with the fury of theologians...
The strange thing about science is that it progresses despite the biasses
of its practitioners, but that can be a long process in which lives are
ruined along the way....
B.M. 1/9/2000
Sweden
.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
ANTIQUITY JOURNAL
"A Bone to
Pick"
By Bob Fink (Sent May 5,
1998)
I have a bone to pick with Francesco d'Errico's
viewpoint in the March issue of Antiquity (article too long to reproduce
here) regarding the Neanderthal flute found in Slovenia by Ivan Turk.
D'Errico argues the bone artifact is not a flute.
D'Errico omits dealing with the best evidence that this bone find is a
flute.
Regarding the most important evidence, that
of
the holes being lined up, neither d'Errico nor Turk make mention of this.
This line-up is remarkable especially if they
were made by more than one carnivore, which apparently they'd have to be,
based on Turk's analysis of the center-spans of the holes precluding
their being made by a single carnivore or bite (Turk,* pp.171-175).
To account for this possible difficulty, some doubters do mention "one
or more" carnivores (Chase & Nowell, Science News 4/4/98).
My arguments over the past year pointed out
the
mathematical odds of the lining up of the holes occurring by chance-chewing
are too difficult to believe.
The Appendix in my essay
("Neanderthal Flute
--A Musicological Analysis" --
http://www.greenwych.ca/fl-compl.htm)
proves that the number of ways a set of 4 random holes could be differently
spaced (to produce an audibly different set of tones) are 680 ways. The
chances a random set would match the existing fragment's spacing [which
also could produce a match to four diatonic notes of the scale] are therefore
only one in hundreds. If, in calculating the odds, you also allowed the
holes to be out of line, or to be less than 4 holes as well, then the chance
of a line-up match is only one from many tens of thousands.
And yet randomness and animal bites still are
acceptable to account for holes being in line that could also play some
notes of the scale? This is too much coincidence for me to believe occurred
by chance.
D'Errico mentions my essay in his article and
what he thought it was about, but he overstates my case into being a less
believable one. My case simply was that if the bone was long enough (or
a shorter bone extended by a mouthpiece insert) then the 4 holes would
be consistent and in tune with the sounds of Do, Re, Mi, Fa (or flat Mi,
Fa, Sol, and flat La in a minor scale).
In the 5 points I list below, extracted from
Turk's monograph in support of this being a flute, d'Errico omits dealing
with much of the first, and all of the second, fourth and sixth points.
Turk & Co's monograph shows the
presence
on site of boring tools, and includes experiments made by Turk's colleague
Guiliano Bastiani who successfully produced similar holes in fresh bone
using tools of the type found at the site (pp. 176-78 Turk).
They also wrote (pp. 171-75) that:
1. The center-to-center distances of the holes
in the artifact are smaller than that of the tooth spans of most carnivores.
The smallest tooth spans they found were 45mm, and the holes on the bone
are 35mm (or less) apart;
2. Holes bitten are usually at the ends of bones
rather than in the center of them;
3. There is an absence of dents, scratches and
other signs of gnawing and counter-bites on the artifact;
4. The center-to-center distances do not
correspond
to the spans of carnivores which could pierce the bone;
5. The diameters of the holes are greater than
that producible by a wolf exerting the greatest jaw pressure it had available
-- it's doubtful that a wolf's jaws would be strong enough (like a hyena's)
to have made the holes, especially in the thickest part of the wall of
the artifact.
6. If you accept one or more carnivores, then
why did they over-target one bone, when there were so many other bones
in the cave site? Only about 4.5% of the juvenile bones were chewed or
had holes, according to Turk (p. 117).
* Turk Ivan, Ed., Mousterian Bone Flute,
(Znanstvenoraziskovalni
Center Sazu, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 1997)
(Update, Jan., 2002):
D'ERRICO'S
FATAL FLAW:
NEANDERTHAL FLUTE:
FANG OR FLINT?
What Made The Neanderthal
Flute?
Some of you may have read or discussed recent materials
published on whales, biomusicology, and ancient flutes. The debate has
also re-surfaced about whether the Neanderthal Flute is a manufactured
flute or a carnivore-originated object.
Others may have heard or read, at a Sept 2ooo conference
of music archaeologists, Francesco d'Errico's most recent views claiming
the Neanderthal flute had a carnivore origin, where no opposing view was
able to be formally presented then. [However, the proceedings publication,
due in mid-2002, will contain a reply by myself to some of these views,
containing an outline of evidence that it is a flute from Ivan Turk (who
found the Neanderthal bone).]
In the interests of a balance of views, including those
of Ivan Turk and others, below is some brief updated evidence on the other
side of the debate.
The evidence demonstrates this bone is indeed a flute,
consistent as well with hole spacings that match a do-re-mi-fa sequence
of tones.
Summary of d'Errico
view
Teeth marks on the Neanderthal "flute" are
offered by Francesco d'Errico as evidence that the bone is created by carnivores.
D'Errico's earlier comparative evidence (published without first-hand examination
of the bone) comes from looking at holes in other bones found where only
carnivores were present, thus they were known to be naturally made holes
-- and, because some of them looked like one or other of the holes
in the Neanderthal bone, d'Errico concluded that the Neanderthal bone was
a natural object.
And that seems to be, in short, d'Errico's &
colleagues'
entire case that the bone is not an artifact.
Analogy
But in looking at the d'Errico illustrations or descriptions
of teeth-marks [see: d'Errico, Francesco. 2000. Sur les traces de l'Homo
symbolicus. La Recherche, Hors Serie No. 4, pp. 22-25.], I cannot help
but notice, yet again, something else besides these unconvincing scratches
(which were already admitted to exist by Turk).
Indulge in an analogy for a moment: Suppose that the
line-up of holes looked like letters, instead of like round
"O"s.
Suppose the first opening looked like an F, the next
like an L, the next like a U, and the 4th like a T. And suppose the opposite
5th presumed opening looks like an E. Taken separately, I suppose one could
of course find a hole or crackage that looks like any one of
the openings.
Take the F, for example. Like d'Errico, suppose I go
to a cave where no hominoid had ever been, and find an object with a similar
"F-like" shape on it.
Or find also a different bone there, with a
"T-like"
shape. As an object, taking one "letter" at a time,
I can claim for my case that I have several individual natural objects
that resemble either the T or the F or the U or the L, etc.
It would be no surprise that nature could accidentally
have done that, right? We've all seen odd shaped crackages or openings
that can look like something familiar. So do I now "conclude,"
as did d'Errico, since the holes in my no-hombre-cave objects can look
like any one of the openings on the Neanderthal bone, that
therefore, "this N-bone is a natural object"?
Now then, do you now see the fatal flaw in this d'Errico
case?
Fatal Flaw --
Emperor's New Clothes
The flaw is that they fail to see the Neanderthal bone
as a whole. None of the comparitive bones that d'Errico
& co. found in caves where no hominoids had ever been had a set of
3 or more holes in line, nor looked anything like the Neanderthal
bone.
As a whole, the in-line openings, which also match a
known scale spacing, really indicate, or, figuratively speaking, "spell
out," that this is a F-L-U-T-E. If the openings really DID look like
actual alphabet letters spelling the word "flute," it would just
be more unquestionably apparent that a gross failure to "see the whole"
was committed.
It is equally as incompetent for an observer to ignore
that the bone-holes accurately match a very unique scale-spacing [and especially
to ignore that the holes are lined-up], as it would be to
ignore addressing such a matter if the object actually looked like it was
spelling-out an actual word: "FLUTE"!
It is exactly like the Emperor's New
Clothes
fable, in which it is announced the emperor will parade the town in his
new garments.
The emperor instead shows up naked, but no one dares
notice the obvious. No one says a word of that, and the protocol of "Nice
clothes," or "Oh, pretty colours," murmurs through the crowd.
This protocol represents the powerful taphonomic
reputation
of d'Errico.
Only a novice child, who cannot fathom taphonomic
protocol,
says "Look, mommy!! The emperor has no
clothes!!"
Likewise, d'Errico and supporters all blindly fail or
completely ignore seeing or addressing the naked truth that is here really
obvious:
"Look, mommy! They see the
"letters,"
but not the word!! They see the holes, but not the whole, not the lined-up
scale; They see the trees, but not the forest."
Actual List
of Evidence
Analogy aside, here is a quick factual list of what they
do not see nor will address (other than claiming coincidence):
* The object visually spells out that this is a flute
for any eyes that see all the bone's entire features as a whole:
* The near-circular holes are in line, and all similarly
sized;
* The holes are in the right order and spacing (just
like an actual spelling), enabling them (if there was an extension of the
bone) to play the sounds of do, re, mi and fa -- which is virtually as
unlikely to occur by chance, as is finding the spelling of a real word
like "F-L-U-T-E" imitated by chance;
* The 5 openings fit the whole human hand and the size
of fingers (noted by Marcel Otte);
* There are chipping marks claimed to be laterally round
the center holes showing that drilling-like handiwork took place;
* It was found near a fireplace;
* The openings are on a cylindrical hollow bore like
other known flutes;
* The openings fit no known toothspans with such
tooth-shapes
or jaw-power of any one carnivore;
* Therefore, if bitten into existence, the openings had
to be made in that orderly formation by several separately-acting
bites to make each opening;
* There are no counter-bites findable on the opposite
side of the bone openings that should be there, IF the holes were bitten
into existence;
And so on and so on-- some of you have read it several
times before, and if others haven't, or are new to this, see this page
to read all the additional massive evidence -- and then: Ask yourself:
Which is likelier? -- That nature, by coincidence, carved out flute holes,
in-line, with a known acoustic scale's spacing, with the same-sized openings,
etc, etc., -- Or that somebody made it that way? [My calculations
show the odds against it being a chance object are at least millions to
one.]
Some dismiss it all, saying: "These kinds of
unusual,
coincidental things do happen." But to say such a thing, about an
object requiring such a hugemiracle of
coincidence
to exist "naturally," clearly reveals that they don't understand
the size of the odds, or want to deny it is a flute and claim
it's naturally-made as a given premise or pre-ordained conclusion -- and,
because the above-listed evidence doesn't fit that prior conclusion, that
evidence must therefore all be dismissed, or "not be seen" or
addressed, like the emperor's nakedness.
Ivan Turk now has rebutted d'Errico's
arguments
in an article submitted to Current Anthropology. hopefully it will be out
this year.
They have also found incised teeth
and
bones from earlier layers. These could not have been incised by wear or
animals. More details later as I have them. --b
Bob wrote:
Could someone use an animal's tooth for
a
hole-punch?
Bonnie replied:
They could (have used a tooth for a
hole
punch), but did not. It is much easier to make the hole with a flake tool.
The holes' edges do not show the type of incisions that would occur with
a punch. They have striations that go around the hole, not from the top
to the bottom of the hole." --b
-------------------------------------------
So! D'Errico claimed (from photos, I presume
-- or from Nowell & Chase perhaps, who did see the bone) that there
were "no signs" of tool marks.
Therefore, Bonnie (and/or Turk) see striations
where there are none -- or there are striations ("a
minute groove, scratch, or channel especially when one of a parallel series")
and the holes do show signs of thus being circularly bored or drilled.
Came across something slightly relevant to
issue
of whether the Neanderthal flute is a flute. This time it has to do with
art rather than music.
Until very recently, earliest evidence of visual
art was from early modern humans (Cro-magnon)-- cave paintings and small
figurines of fat "fertility goddesses". The latter date to about
30,000 BC. It was widely thought that earlier humans lacked capacity for
art--- this is some of the reason for doubts about Neanderthal music, since
music, like the visual arts, requires conceptualization, creativity etc.
However, a recent discovery in Palestine
seems
to over-turn this: It is a figurine of a fertility goddess dated to at
least 230,000 BC, perhaps even to 800,000 BC. This is even pre-Neanderthal---
associated with Acheulian stone tools, made by Homo erectus (the species
that includes Peking Man, Java Man etc.).
One interesting thing about the image is that
it is remarkably similar to the Cro-magnon fertility goddess ("Willendorf
Venus")-- just as the Neanderthal flute seems similar to Cro-magnon
flutes!!
ED NOTE: This
picture of the
Acheulian figurine is apparently a commercial restoration, and the actual
object, for the sake of accuracy, is shown just below.
Further comments on this discrepancy can be
found
at:
Dear Bob, Found this article in my copy of the
Arizona Republic newspaper today. Thought you might enjoy reading it ...
the attached jpeg is a picture of 6 nice bone flutes. If the picture is
not viewable by you, not much is lost. I noted they referenced your work
(?) without giving you credit. --Tom
Oldest
[playable]
Instrument Found in China
By JOSEPH
B. VERRENGIA
AP Science
Writer
Arizona
Republic
newspaper
SEPTEMBER 23, 1999 --
Archaeologists in
China have found what is believed to be the oldest still-playable musical
instrument: a 9,000-year-old flute carved from the wing bone of a crane.
When scientists from the United States and China blew gently through the
mottled brown instrument's mouthpiece and fingered its holes, they produced
tones unheard for millennia, yet familiar to the modern ear.
(Pictured
below, 2nd from bottom)
"It's a reedy, pleasant sound, a little
thin, like a recorder," said Garman Harbottle, a nuclear scientist
who specializes in radiocarbon dating at Brookhaven National Laboratory
on New York's Long Island. Harbottle and three Chinese archaeologists published
their findings in today's issue of the journal Nature.
The flute was one of several instruments to be
uncovered in Jiahu, a excavation site of Stone Age artifacts in China's
Yellow River Valley. Archaeologists have also found exquisitely wrought
tools, weapons and pottery. Dated to 7,000 B.C., the flute is more than
twice as old as instruments used in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and other
early civilizations. In all, researchers have found some three dozen bone
flutes at Jiahu. Five were riddled with cracks; 30 others had fragmented.
The flutes have as many as eight neatly hollowed tone holes and were held
vertically to play. The Jiahu flute is considerably more recent than a
flutelike bone discovered in 1995 in an excavation of Neanderthal tools
in a cave in Slovenia. That artifact was believed to be more than 43,000
years old, but musicologists question whether it is an instrument.
In contrast, there is no doubt among
researchers
that the Jiahu artifacts are instruments capable of playing multinote music.
Music historians and archaeologists were intrigued by the find. "You
would never have one of these flutes in a symphony. But clearly, these
people knew what an octave sounded like," Harbottle said. He said
the flute can make what sounds like a ‘do-re-mi' scale. It even has a tiny
hole drilled near hole No. 7, apparently to correct an off-pitch tone.
Scholars said the bone flutes provide further
proof that prehistoric Chinese culture was not crude. Music played an integral
role, perhaps combined with astronomical observations and other rituals
that helped to rule their society, they said. That the flutes were made
of durable bone rather than bamboo, as later flutes were, also suggests
they were culturally important, and not mere amusements. In fact, some
scholars believe the Chinese written character for "sound" is
a stylized representation of a vertical flute held in the mouth.
"That they would go to the trouble of
constructing
such instruments suggests a certain importance was placed on sound, and
an attention to aesthetic concerns," said Jonathan Stock, an ethnomusicologist
at the University of Sheffield in England, and a specialist in Chinese
musical history.
The flutes were uncovered at Jiahu in the
1980s.
Their tonal qualities initially were tested in 1987. The intact Jiahu flute
remains locked in a laboratory in China, but replicas may be constructed
for more tonal tests.
From Bob Fink:
Dear Tom:
Thank you very much for sending the text of
the
story. It quotes Harbottle on a matter not found in any other story. Only
2 days ago I was interviewed by the FOX News science writer on this
matter. Her article can be found at Foxnews.com -- under the
"sci-tech"
menu link. I attach her story at bottom for your interest. She also faxed
me the full write-up from Nature magazine, where I saw their reference
to the article in Science about me.
It's the first independent academic reference
I have received from others that I know of, even if not by my name. Now
Fox has written me into the story by name, too. Which means my work is
now a bonafide part of background references for people in the field --
even as far away as China. This pleases me no end. It's the work and not
my name that really matters most to me after all. Perhaps there is still
a town-vs-gown reluctance to deal too directly with a non-academic amateur
like me.
The equal-spacings on the latest Chinese flute
cannot play do, re, mi closely in tune -- as Harbottle indicates -- but
it is well-established, even by doubting ethnomusicologists, that singers,
in the very same culture (in which are found such equal spaced instruments),
who accompany such equal-spaced instruments (spaced equally for finger-width
convenience and/or esthetics) will sing intervals acoustically in tune,
despite the slightly acoustically off-tune instruments.
Also, the fact that they divided the octave yet
again into 7 notes indicates (when numerical systems otherwise tend to
5's and 10's [as per our own toes & fingers]) that they felt pressed
to somewhat match diatonic intervals within the octave, tolerating the
slightly off-tune result from equal-spaced flute holes. Using 5 or 10 hole-divisions
of the octave won't work well for an attempted match.
Thanks again. --
Bob Fink
.
FOX NEWS
Distant
Melodies --
Recently Uncovered Ancient Flute
Sings a
Prehistoric
History
By Amanda Onion
NEW YORK -- Long ago in China, someone
picked
up the hollow wing bone of a crane, smoothed the edges and bored seven
holes along one side. Then, perhaps to correct for an off-key note, they
drilled an even smaller hole beside the last. Last month and 9,000 years
later, a musician picked up the same ancient instrument and played a Chinese
folk song _ using that extra, pitch-correcting hole. It played
perfectly.
"The guy [not a woman?--BF]
had obviously
spent a lot of time on it," said Garman Harbottle, a chemist at the
Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island who wrote about the ancient
flute in this week's journal, Nature. "He didn't want to throw it
away, so he found a way to correct it."
A New Art Form
Archeological evidence has shown that people
have created musical instruments since the ancestors of modern man first
appeared. The earliest instruments -- such as whistles and drums -- were
most likely crafted with a purpose in mind. Drums provided a form of
communication
over long distances and whistles could lure a bird or other creature to
their human predator.
Later, people discovered scales -- a graduated
series of notes that make ear-pleasing melodies when played in certain
sequences. Now, for the first time, scientists have a sense of just what
kind of sound ancient musicians may have produced during the Neolithic
period of human history.
The 9,000-year-old flute that weathered the
centuries
to remain in unusually fine condition was found at the village of Jiahu,
located by the central Yellow River valley in China. The site is particularly
rich with artifacts including turquoise carvings, elaborate pottery and
a carved tortoise shell with engraved characters that some believe could
be the ancestor of later Chinese writing. "This was a flourishing,
rich culture," said David Keightley, a historian of Ancient China
at the University of California at Berkeley. "Because they were able
to feed themselves well, they had high cultural development."
Harbottle suspects the Neolithic people lived
in a structured society where individuals may have carried out roles in
the community. Music may have been one of those roles. Archaeologists found
evidence of more than 30 flutes at the site, all made from the wing bone
of the red-crowned crane and carved with five to seven holes. The instruments
were delicate, measuring about 20 centimeters in length and one and a half
centimeters in width. And all were found inside graves among the 400 human
burials excavated at the site.
Thousands of years later, only one of these
flutes
could produce music without signs of strain. The 22-centimeter flute created
very thin, high-pitched notes that resemble the sound of a person whistling.
Intuitive Design
Most significantly, Harbottle says the seven
notes on the instrument comprise a nearly accurate octave.
Robert Fink, a musicologist in Saskatchewan,
Canada, points out that in nearly every other matter -- money, distance
and time -- humans divide things into units of ten. It's only in music
that cultures have settled on octaves -- a range of seven notes with the
first note repeated at the end -- to arrange their music.
"The nature of sound, itself, is what
ends
up cutting the steps out of the continuum of sound for us," Fink said.
"It overrides the usual desire to make things equal." [See
Scales' bases.]
One of the most compelling pieces of
evidence
that music is intuitive lies in the design of what is thought to be the
oldest instrument ever recovered. In July, 1995, a Slovenian archaeologist
found a 43,000-year-old fragment of a bear femur bone in a cave in northern
former Yugoslavia. Carved into the bone were two complete holes in the
middle and two partial holes carved at each of its broken ends. The distance
between the holes indicated that Neanderthals once played [notes in]
the same musical scale -- known as the diatonic or do re me scale --
that is used today.
The evenly distributed holes in the Chinese
flute
suggest it did not play the whole and half-note sequences of the diatonic
scale. Instead, Harbottle and colleagues suspect it may be part of one
of two ancient Chinese scales that were documented six millennia later.
The Jiahu settlement that spanned 1,300 years
was not advanced enough to leave behind any written records of its own.
But documents from much later cultures in China appear to allude to the
settlement's ancient flutists.
Upon learning about the bird-bone flutes,
James
Watt, the curator of Asian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York reconsidered a Chinese legend that was recorded about 7,000 years
after the end of the Jiahu settlement. In the legend, the flutist's music
is so mesmerizing that large cranes flock from the sky and gather around
the musician. Watt asked, why cranes? "The flutes from that period
were made of bamboo, not bone," he said. "The connection between
the crane and the flute likely came from how the instruments were made
thousands of years earlier."
In order to better analyze the music of these
bone flutes, Chinese scientists plan to create replicas of the instruments.
And if they make a mistake, their ancient ancestors have already demonstrated
how to correct a note.
--------------------------------------
After studying the
Nature
article I made an updated picture illustrating the pitches. The
holes are not as equally spaced as first look would indicate. --Bob
Fink
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GENERAL
NOTE: October, 2000
I received a letter reporting
on
a recent conference in Germany of music archeologists which indicated the
Neanderthal bone flute had been discussed. The reporter observed that for
those who were previously pretty convinced that the Neanderthal bone WAS
a flute, the evidence provided by the archaeologists/anthropologists was
rather convincing: In general, nearly everyone was convinced by the comparative
bone evidence (but not one looked like a flute as the Neanderthal bone
does) that it is a startling but chance similarity to a flute. [But the
idea was not given up entirely.]
Prof. Bonnie Blackwell has
claimed
the markings on the bone do not conform to a tooth bite, are not
smooth, but have striations running round the hole: "The holes'
edges do not show the type of incisions that would occur with a punch.
They have striations that go around the hole, not from the top to the bottom
of the hole."
D'Errico's view that the
holes
are smooth appear to be without credibility, especially as I was given
to understand that d'Errico never examined the actual bone first-hand at
the time of his conclusion.
But even conceding this
point,
Marcel Otte (above)
points out that traces of hominid activity could have been obliterated
in such an old bone, rather than having never been there.
This would make all
other
evidence far more relevant and valuable than the disputed taphonomic evidence.
But few will look at any other evidence.
I have read d'Errico's
article
several times, and I cannot see what some feel is so "convincing"
about it. It is a conclusion based on comparisons to single holes made
by nature or bites on other bones. That these could be similar shape
could indicate any one of the Neanderthal bone holes might be a bitten
hole -- but not all four holes in line. There are no discovered
bones anywhere among the thousands found, formed by natural means, that
have ALL these features:
Holes in-line; on a
cylindrical
hollow bone; all of very similar diameter; found in close proximity to
a fireplace. Not to mention capable of playing do-re-mi-fa notes!!
Further, the holes cannot
have
been formed by one animal bite, as the distances between holes match no
known tooth-span of animalswith the strength to bite-through.
The expected scratches and surrounding marks that would accompany such
bitten holes do not appear on the N-bone, and such holes appear in virtually
none of the many bones found in the Neanderthal cave -- as would be expected
if animals had been there to gnaw at the bones. Virtually all holes appear
only in the one single bone.
The whole conclusion
against it
being an artifact rests on two things:
First: D'Errico's reputation
and:
Secondly, on the so-called
"need"
-- (even by those, like d'Errico & Robert Bednarik, who do
not
believe Neanderthals are dumb brutes) -- to avoid accepting
an artifact that revolutionizes concepts about Neanderthals unless it meets
standards of proof, as Bednarik wrote me, that are in excess of
what is amply sufficient to constitute probable proof when an item is found
among homo-sapien digs. But it seems to me the standards demanded for the
Neanderthal bone are next to impossible to meet.
Sort of like the Black cop
who
brutalizes Black lawbreakers even more than white cops do -- to prove he
isn't playing favourites toward his own Black people.
CONCLUSION
The d'Errico & co.
and Chase/Nowell
articles are a dismissal of ALL the powerful evidence for it being
an artifact-flute apparently because this evidence does not fit the pre-determined
conclusion.
Reliance on
"coincidence"
in order to dismiss this evidence could almost be taken seriously if it
weren't for the apparent ignorance of simple probability arithmetic that
makes this "coincidence" that we are asked to accept
equivalent to a full-scale mammoth miracle, and thus makes
the dismissal of this evidence border on the absurd. Buy that & you'd
buy the Brooklyn Bridge.
In fairness, like the authors
of
this view, most people have their pockets emptied at gambling casinos and
at lottery booths because we likewise tend togrossly
and extremely overestimate our chances of winning or getting 4 plums
in a row, thinking it must be 1 chance in 400 or even 1-in-40 -- not realizing,
that if there are ten symbols on each of the 4 wheels, then there
is actually only 1 chance in 10,000 to get a 4-plum line-up!
Similarly,
there
are at least 10 places around the bone where any of the holes (like plums)
could be vertically out-of-line, which make the odds of the holes
being in-line (by chance) the same or similar as the casino odds. [Not
to mention multiplying this by the odds that make the horizontal
hole-spacings consistent with do-re-mi-fa -- which then makes the total
odds astronomical.]
Had the authors realized
the cosmic
size of the next-to-impossible "coincidence" (1 in
millions)
that they invoked in order to avoid admitting it was indeed an artifact,
they'd know how ludicrous is their ignoring of this evidence and how narrow
& parochial is their not allowing a scientific but
"non-archaeological"
analysis (a simple probability study) to bring light on the matter for
them.
For those denying the bone
is an
artifact, the similarity of any of its holes to a naturally formed or bitten
hole is certainly "suggestive" evidence, but dismissing
that evidence does not even come close to violating the norms
of probability as does the dismissal of the line-up of the holes.
Why rely on miracle
coincidence
to deny it's an artifact when you can face that the obvious and most
probable evidence is not coincidence, and conclude, if not
prove, it probablyis an artifact?
The dismissal of the
evidence would
be irrational if it wasn't known that other motives may exist to make this
false conclusion into the chosen conclusion.
As Otte wrote [Current
Anthropology
Volume 41, Number 2, April 2000]:
"The idea of
Mousterian
ineptitude is one of the deepest and one of the most perverse because it
reassures us about ourselves. The destiny of the Mousterian flute discovered
at Divje Babe was preordained: it could be only disputable and doubtful,
a priori."
