I can well see how you might think that "A society of early humans 35000
years ago simply could not have had a formal musical structure as advanced
as that" and finds of this sort certainly need to be treated with caution;
but this flute is not unique; very similar flutes (some of them may indeed
have been reed pipes) were found years ago in caves at Geissenklosterle and
more at Isturitz in the Pyrenees; all have the same sophisticated
workmanship; "the finger holes had been carefully worked to lie within a
shallow concave surface" "each has at least three well-formed finger holes
arranged with a large gap between holes two and three than between holes one
and two"; (quotes from Steve Mithen's "The Singing Neanderthals" (Orien
Books, 2005). The intervals of tone and minor third (making a fourth
overall) are at the root of just about all world music and are just what
you'd expect to find on such carefully crafted instruments, though this five
hole version, with two such 'units', is a significant development. Having
said that, I find it impossible to relate the 'performance' on the
reconstructed instrument to the spacing of the holes on the picture of the
original, which seems to conform to Mithen's model. Perhaps someone here
knows more about this .



Yuri also says that "The European contacts with other societies from the Age
of Discovery turned up countless cultures that had their music at a far less
advanced level, and that's just a few hundred years ago." But they weren't
painting caves on the scale of Lascaux either. Knowledge gets lost more
easily than found.



_____

From: tabor_n_pipe@yahoogroups.com [mailto:tabor_n_pipe@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of Yuri
Sent: 26 June 2009 04:55
To: tabor_n_pipe@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [tabor_n_pipe] Re pipe and tabot with the mammoths








I have to say that I'm far more than sceptical about the whole thing as it
stands. For one, the musical scale played on the reconstruction is simply
today's pentatonic scale. A society of early humans 35000 years ago simply
could not have had a formal musical structure as advanced as that. The
European contacts with other societies from the Age of Discovery turned up
countless cultures that had their music at a far less advanced level, and
that's just a few hundred years ago. Normally only the great ancient
cultures, like China, India and the like had anything of more advanced
level.
If you look at the fingerholes, you'll notice that they are far more
carefully made than even the vast majority of Mediaeval bone flutes'
fingerholes. Now I'd need a hell of a lot of convincing that 35000 years ago
they could work bone far more precisely than 350 years ago.
Thing is that the bone might very well be 35000 years old, but it doesn't
necessarily follow that the workmanship is that as well. I wonder if
radiocarbon dating has been carried out on the bone in the first place.
And as a last shot, it's flute all rigt, (barring the very real possibility
that it's a reedpipe) but not really a one-handed one...





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