Content uploaded by Susanne C. Münzel
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Susanne C. Münzel
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
New Flutes Document the Earliest Musical Tradition in Southwestern Germany
Abstract and Figures
Considerable debate surrounds claims for early evidence of music in the archaeological record. Researchers universally accept the existence of complex musical instruments as an indication of fully modern behaviour and advanced symbolic communication but, owing to the scarcity of finds, the archaeological record of the evolution and spread of music remains incomplete. Although arguments have been made for Neanderthal musical traditions and the presence of musical instruments in Middle Palaeolithic assemblages, concrete evidence to support these claims is lacking. Here we report the discovery of bone and ivory flutes from the early Aurignacian period of southwestern Germany. These finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe, more than 35,000 calendar years ago. Other than the caves of the Swabian Jura, the earliest secure archaeological evidence for music comes from sites in France and Austria and post-date 30,000 years ago.
Figures - uploaded by Susanne C. Münzel
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Susanne C. Münzel
Content may be subject to copyright.
... Obtuvo su grado mediante la realización de una pasantía de investigación en el Instituto de Fisiología Celular en la unam; bajo la tutoría del Doctor José Bargas Díaz y la Doctora Fabiola Hernández Vázquez, donde participó en el proyecto: "Modulación muscarínica en Interneuronas Colinérgicas Estriatales en un modelo murino" Introducción L a música ha sido compañera del ser humano desde tiempos inmemoriales, formando parte intrínseca de su naturaleza. Aunque es difícil remontar su origen a un punto específico, la evidencia arqueológica indica que el primer instrumento musical -una flauta hecha de hueso que producía sonidos en la escala musical actual-, data de hace aproximadamente 45,000 años (Conard et al., 2009). Los estudios antropológicos revelan una estrecha relación entre la música y los rituales humanos -incluyendo aquellos relacionados con la muerte, las uniones, los nacimientos y eventos políticos-, y esto se remonta a épocas anteriores a la invención de la escritura (Thaut, 2015). ...
La música siempre ha formado parte del ser humano, pues se ha encontrado en todas las culturas. Dependiendo del tipo de música, esta puede tener diversos efectos sobre nosotros, pero uno de los más importantes es que puede ser utilizada como terapia para algunas enfermedades psiquiátricas. A esto se le conoce como musicoterapia, la cual utiliza la música con el objetivo de mejorar la calidad de vida de los pacientes y en los últimos años ha recibido una mayor atención. Así como muchos de nosotros sentimos alegría al escuchar nuestra canción favorita, las investigaciones han demostrado que la música mejora los síntomas, principalmente emocionales, en pacientes con depresión, ansiedad y esquizofrenia, entre otros. Asimismo, también puede mejorar las habilidades sociales en pacientes con trastorno del espectro autista y a las personas con demencia les ayuda a recordar acontecimientos vividos previamente. Aunque aún falta mucho por descubrir con respecto a los beneficios obtenidos con la música y, dado que las enfermedades mentales son complejas, el uso de medicamentos en conjunto con la musicoterapia puede ofrecer mayores resultados y más duraderos. Es importante mencionar que la musicoterapia es una gran herramienta que, además de sus múltiples beneficios, no genera efectos secundarios.
... The Aurignacian culture, associated with the majority of the cave's paintings, is known for its flutes, which have been discovered in southwestern Germany archaeological sites (such as Hohle Fels [23], Isturitz [24], and Pair-non-pair [25]). These bone flutes demonstrate that our Paleolithic ancestors crafted instruments that enabled great expressivity and serve as ideal candidates for auralization experiments. ...
... One aspect of archaeomusicology is the investigation into the invention, distribution, evolution, and localization of particular musical instrument types. The development of aerophonesmusical instruments that create noise by vibrating air within a column of air held within the instrument without the use of percussionis a cornerstone of archaeomusicology as bone flutes dating to more than 30,000 years ago are among the oldest known musical instruments (Conard et al. 2009;Turk et al. 2018). Aerophones are also among the oldest known musical instruments in North America where bone flutes dating to 7530 +/-140 BP have been reported from southern Labrador (Jelsma 2000:14). ...
... In the Swabian Jura (southwestern Germany), Upper Paleolithic symbolic culture is characterized by ivory figurines, musical instruments, and personal ornamentation [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Although small, ornaments are particularly informative, as they are numerous, wellpreserved, diverse in form, and occur throughout the entirety of the Upper Paleolithic. ...
Personal ornaments play an important role in our understanding of human cultural and behavioral change during the Upper Paleolithic, providing insights into intangible aspects of human cultural behavior. Some ornament forms are better studied than others, and fox tooth ornaments, despite their frequent occurrence and broad spatiotemporal span, are relatively under-addressed. Here we present the first comprehensive study of 40 perforated fox teeth recovered from four cave sites in southwestern Germany. This region's rich record of symbolic representations, as well as evidence of long-standing human-fox relationships, make the Swabian Jura an ideal case study for investigations of fox tooth ornaments. By applying a holistic approach, including geometric morphometrics and traceology coupled with experimental archaeology, we show that fox teeth were mostly perforated by bifacial scraping and grooving and were worn as ornaments. We discuss the role of foxes within human socio-symbolic and paleoenvironmental systems during the Upper Paleolithic of the Swabian Jura, and we contextualize our results within the broader context of sites across Europe during the Upper Paleolithic. The data we provide are in line with general trends observed across the continent and offer insight into the role of foxes during the Upper Paleolithic, especially regarding human subsistence, cultural expression, and ornament production.
Рецензияның тақырыбы Раушан Оразбаеваның «Аққулар сазы» жинағы болып табылады. Онда аққу – қасиетті өнердің киелі бейнесі ретінде қылқобызға арналған 26 күйдің нотасын қосқан болатын. Автор ежелгі дәстүрдің иесі Ықылас Дүкенұлы мен Дәулет Мықтыбаевтың шығармашылық мұрагері, сондай-ақ сол мектепке мұғалім Әбдіманап Жұмабекұлы арқылы қабылданған. Оның шығармашылығы Қазақстанда және шетелде кеңінен танымал. Рецензиялаудың негізгі әдісі контент-талдау болғандықтан, соның барысында қазақ музыкасының тарихи контекстіндегі жинақтың маңыздылығы, отандық музыка, музыкалық білім және орындаушылық өнері анықталды. Алғаш рет аққудың музыкалық бейнесінің барлық дерлік нұсқалары мен көне халық күйлерінен бастап жас композиторлардың шығармаларына дейін бір томға жинақталды (Тоғжан Қаратай). Раушан Оразбаеваның іргелі еңбегінің музыкалық-тарихи құндылығы «Аққу» күйлерінің хронологиясын құрудан бұрын, домбыра және сыбызғы репертуарына «көшіп келген» ұқсас бейнелерді қобыз музыкасының орбитасына енгізуден тұрады. Осы мақсатта ол Қожеке Назарұлы, Әлшекей Бектібайұлы, Сыбанқұл Қалбасұлы, Сүгір Әліұлы, Жүнісбай Стамбаев, Нұрғиса Тілендиев және Мәкәлім Қойшыбаев күйлерінің қобыз транскрипцияларын өзі жасап, шығармашылық тәжірибеде сынап көрді. Сондай-ақ әр күй аңызға толы, олардың көпшілігі бұрын тіркелмеген және тек ауызша болған. Р. Оразбаеваның ғылыми құндылығы ауызша тарихнаманың бірқатар жалпыланған мәліметтерінде, музыкалық-этнографиялық деректерді жинаққа енгізуде, сондай-ақ ноталық мәтіннің ғылыми редакциясында жатыр. Ол орындаушы-практик ретінде барлық техникалық әдістерді мұқият тексеріп, музыкалық нота әдістерін жаңартты. Әдістемелік маңыздылығы бұл қобыз туралы толық түсініктемелердің, орындаушылық амалдардың, сондай-ақ жаңадан бастаушыларға ғана емес, тәжірибелі қобызшыға да пайдалы болатын әрбір күй туралы нұсқаулығы бар аңдатпаларының болуына байланысты. Жинақтың жаңашылдығы оның орындаушылық тәсілдерін көрсете отырып, сапалы фото иллюстрациялармен, сондай-ақ Раушан Оразбаеваның жазбалары бар аудио және бейне қосымшалармен жарақтандырылуы болды.
Music production is a universal phenomenon reaching far back into our past. Given its ubiquity, evolution theorists have postulated adaptive functions for music, such as strengthening in-group cohesion, intimidating enemies, or promoting child bonding. Here, we focus on a longstanding Darwinian hypothesis, suggesting that music production evolved as a vehicle to display an individual’s biological fitness in courtship competition, thus rendering musicality a sexually selected trait. We also extend this idea to visual artists. In our design, we employed different versions of naturalistic portraits that manipulated the presence or absence of visual cues suggesting that the person was an artist or a non-artist (e.g., farmer, teacher, physician). Participants rated each portrayed person’s appeal on multiple scales, including attractiveness, interestingness, sympathy, and trustworthiness. Difference scores between portrait versions revealed the impact of the artistic/non-artistic visual cues. We thus tested Darwin’s hypothesis on both a within-subject and within-stimulus level. In addition to this implicit approach, we collected explicit ratings on the appeal of artists versus non-artists. The results demonstrate divergent findings for both types of data, with only the explicit statements corroborating Darwin’s hypothesis. We discuss this divergence in detail, along with the particular role of interestingness revealed by the implicit data.
Excavations at the Geißenklösterle Cave in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany have produced parts of three flutes dating to the Aurignacian period. Particularly noteworthy among these finds is the discovery of a flute carved from mammoth ivory. These finds document the oldest musical tradition known and confirm arguments based on the presence of figurative art and other finds that the makers of the Aurignacian possessed a sophisticated behavioral repertoire by roughly 35,000 years ago.
Publication of the first bird bone flute from the Swabian Jura.
We have investigated between 1995 and 1998 all the bones of cave bears, which were interpreted as Middle Paleolithic flutes, the oldest music instrument in the world: - Große Badlhöhle, Peggau, Steiermark, Austria,
- Lieglloch, near to Tauplit, Steiermark, Austria - Salzofenöhle, Totes Gebirge, near to Bad Aussee, Steiermark, Austria - Divje babe I, near to Cerkno, Slovenia - Potocka Zijalka, Olševa-Massiv, near to Solčava, Slovenia - Istállóskö, near to Szilvásvárad, Hungary.
All these bones have in common not only the presence of holes but also the lack of any indication of human activities, such as impact scars and cut marks.
We also analyzed the bones of cave bears from the Bärenhöhle Lonetal in Baden-Württemberg, a cave with numerous palaeontological remains, but without pleistocene archaeological remains. We put together a whole series of bone with light, significant and strong bite. We compared these remains with the potential flutes and we come to the conclusion that the holes were identical.
We also performed several experiments to determine how the holes might be created.
We found that with a stone artifact is possible to make a hole on fresh bones from a pig or on a fossil bone of a cave bear in 2 to maximal 15 minutes, and that it is not possible to produce such holes with hammering.
We also try with a bench vise to reproduce the pressure of a big carnivore, and we were able to produce circular holes that were very similar to those of the potential Middle Paleolithic flutes and to those from the Bärenhöhle.
Therefore we concluded that until today there are no flutes of cave bear bones.
The discovery of a perforated cave-bear femur from the Neanderthal levels at Divje Babe has been interpreted as the oldest musical instrument in Europe. Here we present the current discussion on the ‘flute’ and its implications for other similar bone finds from early prehistory
RESUME La grotte d'isturitz (Pyrenees-Atlantiques) a ete fouillee entre 1912 et 1922 par E. Passemard. De 1928 a 1950, R. et S. de Saint-Perier y ont repris des fouilles qui ont ete menees jusqu'en 1954 par S. de Saint-Perier apres la mort de son mari. Ils ont decouvert d'importantes couches archeologiques attribuees au Paleolithique moyen (Mousterien) et superieur (Aurignacien, Gravettien, Solutreen, Magdalenien moyen et superieur, Azilien). La collection d'isturitz conservee au Musee des Antiquites Nationales compte une serie unique d'os d'oiseaux portant une ou plusieurs perforations, parfois ornes, que nous pouvons interpreter comme des fragments de flutes. La plupart de ces objets proviennent de la couche gravettienne. Les raccords de plusieurs fragments nous ont permis de reconstituer une flute a quatre trous ; la plus longue connue a ce jour datant du Paleolithique. L'interet de cette etude est aussi de proposer differents modeles theoriques que nous experimenterons ulterieurement. La grotte d'isturitz correspond a l'etage superieur d'un vaste reseau karstique qui s'etend sur les communes d'isturitz et de Saint-Martin-d'Arberoue (Pyrenees- Atlantiques). Longue d'environ 120 m, large de 50 m, pour une hauteur atteignant parfois 20 m, cette cavite est divisee en deux grandes salles d'orientation parallele. L'une, appelee Salle Sud ou Salle de Saint-Martin, debouche au Sud sur la commune de Saint-Martin, l'autre nommee Salle Nord, d'isturitz ou Grande Salle, s'ouvre au Nord sur la commune d'isturitz.