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.