Page 90 - A Historical Lie: The Stone Age

A HISTORICAL LIE: THE STONE AGE

The interest that people living some 100,000 years ago displayed in music
is another indication that they shared almost the exact same tastes as we do
today. The oldest known musical instrument, recovered at Haua Fteah, Libya,
is a fossil flute made out of a bird's bone and estimated at between 70,000 and
80,000 years old. 25 Prolom II is a site from the Eastern Crimea where 41 pha-
lange whistles were found. 26 This site dates back to between 90,000 and
100,000 years ago. 27
However, the musical knowledge of the people from that time goes still
further. Musicologist Bob Fink analyzed a different flute, made from a bear's
thighbone, found in July 1995 by the archaeologist Ivan Turk in a cave in north-
ern Yugoslavia. Fink proved that this flute, determined by radiocarbon tests to
be between 43,000 and 67,000 years old, produced four notes, and had half and
full tones. This discovery shows that Neanderthals used the seven-note scale—
the basic formula of today's Western music. Examining the flute, Fink saw that
the distance between its second and third holes was double that between the
third and fourth. This means that the first distance represents a whole tone,
and the distance next to it a half-tone. Fink wrote, "These three notes . . . are
inescapably diatonic and will sound like a near-perfect fit within any kind of
standard diatonic scale, modern or antique." This reveals that Neanderthals
were people with an ear for and knowledge of music. 28

This flute, made by the Neanderthal,
shows these people used the 7-note
scale that forms the basis of
Western music. Making a flute calls
for one set of information, culture
and abilities; and playing it, yet an-
other set.

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