BONE FLUTES Old bone flutes

WHEN AND WHERE DID HUMANS ORIGINATE? JELLE ATEMA BELIEVES IT WAS WHEN WE STARTED PLAYING MUSIC. BUT WHAT IS MUSIC? DID HUMANS OF 50,000 YEARS AGO MAKE MUSIC… OR JUST SOUND? HIS INTEREST IN THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE WORLD’S OLDEST FLUTES COMES FROM THIS HUMAN QUEST FOR ORIGINS, IN WHICH BONE FLUTES CAN HELP US FIND SOME OF THE ANSWERS TO INTRIGUING QUESTIONS ABOUT OUR ANCESTORS.

one preserves well and bone flutes have been fipple flutes with greatly variable allow us a unique acoustical window sound possibilities. The complexity of the Binto the life, the sounds and perhaps flute construction and the potential for the music of our paleolithic ancestors. The making a wide range of sounds suggest that simplest flutes one can make are open pipes our ancestors found flute sounds important. blown across the top like pan pipes or coke To appreciate the excitement as well as bottles. More sophisticated construction the interpretation limits of the discovery of technique is required to make a fipple flute bone flutes from paleolithic times one needs BY JELLE ATEMA with an air channel such as that found in a to have some simple knowledge of flutes recorder or organ pipe. (something which I suspect is not lacking in As a young child Jelle Atema stalked In this article, I will argue (with three readers of this magazine!). It is important to animals in the forest and cut little flutes examples spanning 50 millennia) that some know how different types of flute are made from hollow reeds. Jelle studied of the best-preserved bone flutes may have both if one wants to evaluate the technical biology at the University of Utrecht, the been ‘fipple’ flutes. If so, both Cro Magnon skill of construction and if one wants to Netherlands, and flute with Jean-Pierre and Neanderthal people possessed interpret the flute remains. Then it is Rampal during summers in Nice, remarkable technical knowledge and manual important to know how flutes are played to France. He moved to the USA where skill 50,000 years ago and probably much evaluate to what extent distinct tones can be he now lives by the sea in Woods Hole, longer. Furthermore, the finger holes of a produced and modulated. As the Massachusetts. He is Professor of flute temptingly suggest specific pitches from reconstructed flutes will demonstrate, we Biology at the Boston University which we might try to reconstruct an can play all sorts of music with them and Marine Program, where he and his ancestral scale. Based on careful some sound truly beautiful, but we can not students study chemical signals asking reconstructions of bone flutes, I will argue determine how our ancestors played those fish, lobsters, snails and robots how that pitch variation around any finger same instruments. they make sense out of underwater position is so great that attempts to odour patterns. Jelle Atema continues reconstruct prehistoric musical scales must Simple flute science to perform on the flute and has also be taken as mere suggestions. Finally, the Flutes produce sound by ‘cutting’ an air commissioned chamber music works. most intriguing question of the function and stream over an edge; this causes turbulence meaning of flute sounds for our ancestors and air vibrations. In open or closed pipes must remain in the realm of poetry. We can the frequency of the vibration depends on only guess at their emotional experience the length and diameter of the pipe. By when they heard the sound of their blowing faster, the frequency first doubles to exquisitely crafted flutes. produce the higher octave. Increasing air speed as well as other blowing techniques Introduction will produce different higher intervals even Our Ice Age ancestors, both Cro Magnon in simple pipes without additional finger and Neanderthal, may have used many holes. More subtle variation in blowing will different sound-producing tools, but only also modulate the frequency up or down bone preserves well. This leaves us with sometimes as much as a full tone in a flutes to argue whether such tools were contemporary scale. musical instruments. The argument has no There are two fundamentally different scientific answer as it depends on our ways of cutting the air stream to produce definition of ‘music’ versus ‘sound’… and sound. music is ‘in the ear of the beholder’! It is as 1) Blowing across the end of a pipe difficult to prove that humans of 50,000 (panpipes, quenas, nais, coke bottles) or years ago appreciated music as it is to prove across a hole in the shaft of a pipe that animals make music. That should not (transverse flutes). prevent us from documenting as carefully as 2) Blowing into an air channel that directs the possible what the instruments of our air stream onto the bevelled edge of a sound ancestors can do in our contemporary hole (penny whistles, recorders, organ pipes). hands. We can determine the limits of their The first type is based on simple sound and their musical potential. I will now construction, but more difficult to play, since argue with a series of three well-preserved the player must control the air stream so bone flutes ranging in age from 4,000- that it hits the air-cutting edge just right. 53,000 years old that these instruments may The second type, referred to as a fipple flute,

18 PAN DECEMBER 2004 BONE FLUTES is easy to play because the channel directs one-and-a-half octaves. When played the air stream. However, it is more difficult ‘straight’, the lowest note is A# (using A440 to make. It requires insight and considerable as the standard) and the note sequence is construction technique to A#-B-C#-D#-F-G# and in the next octave a) put a stopper in the pipe, A#-B-C#-D#. When not playing straight, the b) cut an air channel into the stopper and/or pitch of each tone can be modulated by a the inner wall of the pipe such that the air is full chromatic step. This would allow the directed onto entire chromatic scale to be played and then c) the bevelled edge of a hole in the wall of some. The sound is clear and strong but the pipe. slightly ‘raspy’; this is probably due to the I will now go on to discuss the thin walls of a typical bird bone. reconstruction of three ancient flutes. The flute of Roque St Christophe/ The Flute of Veyreau Pas du Miroir This 4,000 year old, beautifully decorated This important instrument is also known The original and reconstructed flute is made of a wing bone (ulna) of a as the flute of Abri Blanchard and has Cro Magnon flute. The original is chipped Griffon (or a Black) vulture. It was found in been described several times. It has not (top left in figure); the author kept the a burial cave in the South of France together been dated accurately, but Harrold (1988) reconstruction intact, creating a strong, with other artefacts and human bones from and others, including Randall White of the beautiful and enchantingly clear tone. which the flute was dated by carbon isotope American Museum of Natural History, analysis (Fages, Mourer-Chauvire, 1983). believe it to be Aurignacian I and thus reconstructed two identical copies (one is The original is in the Cevennes Museum of 25,000-35,000 years old. The original is shown above) of this flute, using the ulnas Florac, France, where on 13 May 1988 I remarkably complete and in good shape of a contemporary North American deer, studied it with Mr Fages. compared to many other flutes of the Odocoileus virginianus, that had died on This flute is in perfect condition! I only same vintage. It appears unplayable as a Naushon Island, MA. (One copy of the ‘Roc’ needed to add a channelled cork stopper to result of critical breakage and material flute replica I gave to my inspiring teacher, make it come to life. The original flute accumulated inside. the French flute virtuoso, Jean-Pierre sounds very much like the reconstruction I The ‘Roc’ flute, together with other Abri Rampal. The other one I used to record a made later (discussed below). There is little Blanchard material, was sold to the British sound track for the American Museum of doubt that this is a fipple flute, since all that Museum in London in the 1920s. The label Natural History, which has been heard in was required to make a strong sound across on the original identifies it as follows: the permanent exhibit Hall of Human the entire range of notes was a properly ‘Commune de Pelzac sur Dordogne, Pas du Biology since 1992.) shaped stopper. The original stopper must Miroir La Roque, donnée par Mr Mercier, I reconstructed the flute of Roque St have been made of less durable material, maire’. The Pas du Miroir is along the Christophe as a fipple flute, leaving the perhaps a cork from the local cork oak, Vezere river in Central South France in the (presumed broken) bridge over the tone hole Quercus suber. Even if made of wood, wax area of Lascaux, near the Roque St and carving an internal air channel to or clay, the stopper would most likely be lost Christophe, not far from the Abri correspond directly to the break surfaces on over the ages. Blanchard. An early reconstruction sent to the original. I also bevelled the lower edge of In October 1988, thanks to Mr me in 1984 by Mark Newcomer of the the tone hole and stoppered the top of the Dominique Albouy of the Cevennes National British Museum, through the good offices of flute with cork. The original is chipped at Park, I obtained an identical vulture (Gyps John Pfeiffer, author of The Creative the bottom; I kept the bottom intact. fulvus) ulna from which I reconstructed the Explosion (1982), suggested that it was a This flute reconstruction plays with great Flute of Veyreau. I included its decorative ‘quena’ flute. By playing it off the upper lip ease. It has a strong, beautiful and dots and lines, which are lightly carved into instead of the customary lower lip I could enchantingly clear tone, a far cry from the the bone surface, and the little hole at the coax sound and melodies out of this model. early sounds generated from the ‘quena’ (I recorded the sound of the Newcomer model of this flute. Its range is one and-a- replica in 1985 in the painted cave of Font half octaves in the high piccolo range from We can only guess de Gaume near Les Eyzies, Dordogne, D# to G#. Based again on A440 as the France, for the exhibit ‘Dark Caves, Bright standard and ‘straight’ playing, its scale is at the emotions of our Visions’, curated by Randall White of the diatonic in B: D#-E-F#-G#-A#-B-C# and the American Museum of Natural History.) second octave: D#-E- F#-G#. However, the “ancestors when they However, upon careful examination of pitch and finger possibilities of this flute are the original in London (10 September so flexible that one can easily play a heard the sound of 1986) I discovered break surfaces that chromatic scale and even a glissando like a suggested that this flute was a fipple flute slide whistle. The range can be extended their exquisitely like the flute of Veyreau. To make a fipple below D# to include D-C# by partially closing flute from a long bone, one must bevel the the open end of the pipe with a finger. crafted flutes tone hole and direct the air stream towards this bevelled edge. To direct the air The Neanderthal flute of Divje Babe effectively, one should carve out a small In 1995, Ivan Turk and his team discovered bottom, which suggests a cord for carrying channel along the inside of the pipe above the oldest known flute in a bear cave called the flute around the neck. The copy is the tone hole. This becomes a weak spot. Divje Babe (‘wild woman’). His scholarship identical to the original. An interesting” note The original was broken in exactly that and that of his colleagues resulted in accurate is that Griffin vultures have been extinct in place, leaving a U-notch above the finger dating and description of the flute and its France since the 1930s. They were recently holes. The bevel at the bottom of the U and context (Turk et al, 1997). What makes this reintroduced with great success in the a fine protrusion along one of the sides of discovery particularly exciting is that it came Florac area, allowing me access to this the U are good indicators that a piece was from a Neanderthal site. The flute is made perfectly matched bone for the broken off, corresponding directly with the from the femur of a young cave bear. Under reconstruction. weak spot. The flute has four finger holes in the tone-producing area, it clearly has two The flute of Veyreau plays like a soprano front and two at the back for the thumbs. and possibly a third finger hole and perhaps a recorder. But, unlike the recorder we know, The original bone has not been thumb hole in the back. Both the third finger its scale is neither pentatonic nor diatonic; identified accurately, but it resembles the hole and the ‘thumb hole’ could be part of one could call it ‘hexatonic’. It has a range of ulna of a deer. On 1 October 1986 I large chips that broke off. The tone-producing

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in between when using different finger combinations and/or blowing techniques. The first three notes of this group form a fragment of a diatatonic C-major scale; the last three notes form a fragment of a pentatonic scale in C. The sound possibilities are less than in the ‘Roc’ flute. Meanwhile, Professor Gernot Rabeder of the Paleontology Department of the University of Vienna generously donated a proper cave bear femur for this reconstruction of Neanderthal sound. (Dr Ulrike Griebel of the Lorenz Institute in Original and reconstructed Neanderthal Vienna hand-delivered the cave bear bone flutes. The author is shown playing the just in time for me to make the replica I latter on the first page of this article. played at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, 19 area (on the left in the figure above) is both February 2000 in Washington DC.) Thus, worn and somewhat broken but has the reconstruction (pictured above) was microscopic signs of bevelling consistent with made from a young cave bear femur dated its function of producing sound. 50-100,000 years old and partially fossilized. The Slovenian team, specifically Drago I followed the same principles as in the Kunej and Mira Omerzel-Terlep, reconstruction of the other flutes. The bone’s reconstructed this flute as an end-blown distal (knee) end is the sound-producing ‘quena’. The sound is produced by placing end. The bone matches the original perfectly the flute against the lower lip and chin, here. The proximal (hip) end flares out more covering most of the top of the pipe and in this bone than in the original. This should aiming the air stream directly at the bevelled not affect the sound quality, but it may edge of the lower part of the U-notch. They change the pitch of the flute to some degree. report that this produced a ‘clear sound’ and I made three finger holes, matching the that the use of the three finger holes allowed size of the original and assuming that the three to six different notes corresponding to smaller bottom hole was indeed a finger Bb-B-C-C#-D-D#, depending on blowing hole, not a break. I considered the potential Top: work on the Cro Magnon flute. direction and strength. ‘thumb’ hole on the other side a fracture and Below: Bronze Age flute and vulture bone. On 10 September 1997, I visited Ivan did not include it in the model. The final Turk in Ljubljana and inspected the original, scale would sound more complete to our demonstrate the possibility that there is a from which I made sketches and ears if this extra hole existed. long line of fipple flute technology dating measurements for future replicate building. The critical difference with the Slovenian back over 50,000 years. Given the slow pace This information is available in the book reconstruction is the fipple. I cut a sound of technological innovation in prehistoric describing all details of the discovery (Turk hole with bevelled lower edge and stoppered times and the rarity of discoveries of well- et al, 1997). I also played the ‘quena’ replica the flute with a cork. I cut a small channel in preserved prehistoric flutes, fipple flutes may made by Drago Kunej from a cave bear the cork aimimg the air at the bevel. The have been made for 100,000 years or more. femur and the metal replicas for sale at the resulting sound is clear and sweet but not Very similar bone fipple flutes have been in Museum. They make good sounds. powerful. I was hesitant to cut a larger sound use through the Middle Ages up to recent However, the wear and breakage of the hole for fear of fracturing such a precious centuries all over Western Europe, where sound-generating area did not allow me to bone. In fresh bone this would not have they are not uncommonly found near determine if this flute was indeed a ‘quena’, been a problem. The resulting scale D-Eb-F- villages and in old wells. as my Slovenian colleagues had decided. I A does not match any normal scale. wanted to see if it could just as well have Pitch variation been a ‘recorder’, similar to the other bone Flutes are about the only instruments that flutes I had reconstructed. The Turk group Flute manufacture suggest the possibility of determining the had not at that stage found an appropriate pitch of different fingerings and hence allow cave bear bone for me to try this model. A was complex while the reconstruction of ancient scales. recent visit to the Museum of St Gallen, However, a player can ‘bend’ the tone so Switzerland had turned up some appropriate “other tools were simple much that the pitch obtained by any single bones but not the permission to ‘mutilate’ finger position can vary by a semitone or one into a musical instrument. which may indicate the more. This allows the player a great amount While the search for the right bone went of pitch freedom. Even the most on, I used a human femur of the proper importance of music sophisticated contemporary flutes must be outside dimensions to try my recorder fine-tuned at all times during playing. A hypothesis. I copied very carefully the wide flautist trained in Western music will sound-producing area near the distal (knee) However, with changes in blowing and with automatically adjust the pitch to correspond end and kept the ‘missing piece’, as in the finger combinations a few other tones” can be to what sounds ‘right’ to our Western ear. flute of Roque St Christophe. The tone hole produced. Additional lower tones (C-C#) can Playing reconstructed bone flutes, I find was bevelled at its lower end as in the be made by partially covering the bottom myself correcting the pitch to what sounds original and it was equally wide. Like my hole of the pipe. familiar. But with effort I can play ‘wrong’ or Slovenian colleagues, I decided to consider ‘straight’, trying to avoid any bending, to get the third front hole a real finger hole but to Reconstructions the pitch of each fingering. At the other leave out the possible thumb hole in the rear. All reconstructions are models – extreme, I can ‘slide’ through all pitches in a The resulting flute plays easily and embodiments of someone’s ideas. This is glissando. In other words, one can make produces a reasonably clear tone, although it particularly clear in the reconstruction of these little flutes do many different things. In is less brilliant than the ‘Roc’ reconstruction. fragmented prehistoric material. In the case the absence of a prehistoric teacher, we It has a small range of B’-C’’-D’’-F’’ and notes of these three flutes, I wanted to modern students are left in an only

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The three reconstructed flutes described in this article: top, Neanderthal flute of fossilized cave bear bone; middle, Cro Magnon flute of contemporary deer bone; bottom, bronze age (southern France) flute of contemporary vulture bone. marginally constrained pitch environment. It is for this reason that I caution against facile conclusions about prehistoric pitches and scales, much as we would love to know.

Music? The pitch problem is at least partially constrained: we know the range of the flute sounds and get a hint of a scale even if we can not determine which scale was actually used. But the next problem is even more difficult to approach scientifically. We would love to learn something about the function of the sounds produced by these flutes. But here we are entirely in the realm of our imaginations. The flutes could have been used as bird-call hunting tools, diatonic scales or scale fragments when Fages G, Mourer-Chauvire C (1983). La flûte communication signal whistles for group played ‘straight’, ie. with a constant en os d’oiseau de la grotte sépulcrale de hunting or tribal war; they could have been airstream. The answer eludes us. But Veyreau (Aveyron) et inventaire des flûtes used for religious ceremonies, entertainment perhaps we can make comparisons with préhistoriques d’Europe. Memoires de la at dances, to accompany courtship rituals or animal sounds. Some birds and whales, for Société Préhistorique Française 16. send off the spirits of the dead to the world example, seem to ‘agree’ among their Pfeiffer J (1982) The Creative Explosion. beyond. In some of these contexts we could respective species that certain interval series Cornell University Press. speculate that the sounds became… music. are ‘right’. Even local ‘dialects’ emerge which Turk I, ed (1997) Mousterian ‘Bone Flute’. can be stable or change over the years. This Slovenian Institute for Archaeology, Ljubljana Biomusic comparison was the subject of the AAAS It would be interesting to know which scales symposium on ‘BioMusic’ (Gray et al, 2001). This manuscript was based on a our prehistoric ancestors found acceptable presentation given at the annual meeting of and pleasing, or – more fundamentally – References the American Association for the whether they cared about scales at all. Was Gray P, Krause B, Atema J, Payne R, Advancement of Science, 19-21 February there a prehistoric Bach to codify a Krumhansl C, Baptista L (2001) ‘BioMusic: 2000 in Washington, DC, in the Symposium particular interval series? The flute the Music of Nature and the Nature of ‘BioMusic: The Music of Nature and the reconstructions show both pentatonic and Music.’ Science 291: 52-54. Nature of Music’.

FLUTES, BONES AND THE LANGUAGE OF LOBSTERS: MORE ABOUT JELLE ATEMA

During high school days, on family premiered two flute and strings Many parts of my disparate interests holidays, I explored the French compositions by Ezra Laderman. come together in the search for the forests alone, tracking and During my doctoral work in Ann origins of human music. The oldest observing animals and duetting with Arbor, Michigan, I became intrigued preserved musical instruments are the birds on little flutes I made from by the evolution of sensory systems. bone flutes dating back as far as hollow reeds. Later, at the University In order to understand the 53,000 years. This oldest flute of Utrecht (The Netherlands), I physiological filter properties of remnant may be Neanderthal. became fascinated in the sensory receptor organs, I needed to know I let the reconstructed flutes worlds of other animals, in particular more about the physics of stimuli in the mysterious world of underwater mentioned in this article guide me in different environments, such as air musical improvisation just as I did as sensing. My work became centered and water, and about the on chemical, hydrodynamic and a boy in the forest. They show the behavioural functions of the sense complexity of flute manufacture at a acoustic signals that inform animals organs. The Oceanographic about their world. time when hunting and other tools Institution in Woods Hole then were simple. This seems to indicate At the same time, I became more invited me to study ‘chemical that music was important. The sound and more involved in flute communication in the sea’. I chose possibilities of these flutes are so performance. A solo appearance lobsters as expert animals to teach broad that they do not allow us to with the harpist of the me about chemical communication. determine with certainty what scales Concertgebouw Orchestra led me Perhaps not surprisingly for a our ancestors liked to play. But we to Jean-Pierre Rampal, with whom musician, I found a number of can hear the range of possibilities. I studied for three years. I have acoustic analogies in the receptor When I played one of these since played in various venues, cells used for sensing odour plumes. including the Rockefeller University instruments by candlelight in front of The whip-like antennules support the rock paintings of the beautiful and Merkin Hall in New York and at frequency discrimination over three the Shanghai Conservatory (while cave of Fond de Gaume in the ‘octaves’ of water motion: a low- French Dordogne area, the small teaching a course in aquatic frequency cochlea. Currently, we are chemoreception). Some of my audience was transported back in testing odour orientation algorithms tears to our ancestors. finest performances have been with with sharks, larval fish, lobsters and Sam Sanders and Ransom Wilson lobster-inspired robots. We are also All of us want to know where we at the Cape and Islands Festival analyzing the signals that regulate came from and where life and and with Rampal and the Colorado social behaviour and lobsters’ ability human life originated, perhaps with Quartet. I have commissioned and to recognize individuals. the hope of predicting our future.

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