Incredibly cool, and the video explains how they made a 3D scan of it in order to reconstruct a playable version with broken parts replaced.
Which seems like it would be the coolest thing ever to 3D print. I'd love to have this on my bookshelf.
Unfortunately, I can only find a primitive playable version that was recreated from an illustration [1], and the museum gift shop sells a 3D-printed version that is unrestored and therefore unplayable [2] -- though the museum shop page doesn't seem to load any content [3].
But 4:34 [4] in their video shows the detailed scanned version with restoration that is playable: "To this end, we made a 3D model of the replica in which Ljuben Dimkaroski added the missing pieces."
I wonder how I could get/print one of those...?
(I also wonder whether a 3D printed plastic one would sound any good... Another source [5] indicates the playable version is a clay replica.)
Amazing, hearing it played sends chills down my spine.
It's not as old, but in Wernor Herzog's documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams", an archeologist plays a 30,000 year old vulture bone flute. It even uses the pentatonic scale!
The first link of Wulf Hein playing the Star-Spangled Banner on a 30,000 year old flute is incredible. To think that someone noodling on a flute could have produced that melody before dogs were domesticated is fascinating.
> This discovery confirms that the Neanderthals were, like us, fully developed spiritual beings capable of sophisticated artistic expression.
That feels a bit like an unsupported claim to me. It may be so, I am not saying Neanderthals weren't spiritual beings capable of sophisticated artistic expression. I am just wondering how you would confidently conclude that from the existence of (a thing which is probably) a flute.
In a slightly larger sense, it feels like a lot of claims about Neanderthals do this same thing: the presence of a specific artifact becomes not only evidence of technological sophistication, but proof of some deeper philosophical or spiritual consequence. I'm fascinated by early hominin, and try to follow this stuff as a lay person. So much interesting progress in such a short time. But, I'm not comfortable with the level of speculation I frequently see among communicators in this field, personally.
The connection between artistic expression and "spiritual beings" is also odd. What if they were just playing some songs around a fire? What if the flutes were for emulating bird songs? Maybe it was a kid's toy. The presence of artistic expression need not require some complex or even simplistic spiritualism, only a kind of basic aesthetics, a desire for creative expression.
Let's assume the thing is a flute. It's been reconstructed and plays beautifully. The odds of a hyena making such a thing with its teeth are in silly territory; and we have other similar flutes that are nearly as old (relatively speaking).
Given that, the fact that they use a scale so resonant with humans that it is still in very popular use sixty thousand years later - that's incredible. I felt the article drastically undersold the awesomeness of that, showing far too much restraint.
Have you seen the video where Bobby McFerrin leads a whole crowd to sync perfectly with each other, without rehearsal, thanks to the pentatonic scale [0]? That's spiritual stuff; it's 'sophisticated artistic expression'. That's the same scale that was (almost certainly) intentionally used to make this flute.
Here's a great comment from that video:
> What Bobby is doing here is transcendent. He gives an audience four notes of a five note scale, with no context, with no explanation, and the audience is intuitively able to grasp what the 5th note of the scale is. Not only that, the audience is able to intuitively understand the way the scale continues, above and below the range they were given. The fact that Bobby says this works with audience anywhere in the world speaks to a deep cross-cultural piece of the human experience and how we understand music and ourselves. Something is happening at the fundamental level here and I think it's lost on some people how truly profound this is.
Neanderthals intentionally crafted sophisticated flutes to play this precise scale 60,000 years ago? That's profound alright.
There is a (now rather dated) theory of an hierarchy of arts, where music, being the most abstract and at the same time the most intimate and sensual (AKA spiritual) one taking the crown. If you adhere to this idea to some degree, there may be no way around this kind of conclusion, short of abandoning said theory, since music is supposed to encompass the virtues of all the other arts.
Oof. It's an important find (AKA the Divje Babe flute[1]), but it's very hard to stay tuned in when they utter the phrase "spiritual being". That's quite a thing to say. How do you measure spirits these days? With wheels, rods, or clocks?
So far as intelligent goes, the Neanderthals might have well been smarter than the first Sapiens to cross their path, but were disadvantaged by other factors, like a potentially ruinous birth rate, more restricted diet, and poorer (or more restricted) eyesight.
One interesting idea I've heard . . for a story . . imagine if sapiens spread HGT-style via a disease, that was transmitted by violence and rape. Like a bio-zombie, or the "Crossed" virus from "Crossed +100" (and which was invented by Garth Ennis, I guess). From the neanderthal perspective, it would have felt like Planet Zombie afterwards - and then they have to make their way among these terrifying new humanoids. The horror of the future. It would probably be more interesting moved to the present day, with a speciating change propagating via what looks like zombie bites, but which actually reflects the early stages of a new species, some weird more-fully-eusocial variant of homo adapted for extreme density.
[1] Which was really, really controversial in its day, and to some extent still is.
Well... sure, but if you're really pushing the admixture hypothesis you'd necessarily need to assume that the species that lived in a more densely populated group was likely less individualistic. Add the Neanderthals' survival in sub-zero temps and you can easily claim that the Neanderthals weren't just "a little smarter" than the homo sapiens, they were likely doing 2 or 3 SDs on them, easily. Plus, them being acclimated to the cold would give them much better, not worse, eyesight, because they'd have to cross large distances and actually be able to make out things in the ice, and would also need good peripheral vision for protection from really bright light. "ruinous birth rate" doesn't really make sense... unless you compare the population of the neanderthals to that of the sapiens. By all accounts, the neanderthals lived in small groups, often not even over 30 individuals. They also likely had a very varied diet, or at least a very rich diet, because you can't be expected to be dumb and undernourished if you're eking out centuries in a cave because the weather outside is cold enough to freeze your bones.
As for the last paragraph... agreed. Even the most skillful warriors can be overtaken by a huge wave. Nothing to fight.
I'd say that "Spiritual" here stands for the human spirit, rather than some kind religious spirituality. Spirit being everything surpassing mere cognitive actions needed for survival.
The finding (like many other) strongly implies that neanderthals had the ability of abstract thought and creative urges. This should in no way be surprising since neanderthals appear at a quite late and developed stage of the human evolution.
Neanderthals are generally quite an interesting topic, but equally interesting is the approach and prejudice of the scientific community towards them throughout the history. Research on neanderthals has been littered with logical fallacies by researchers who were absolute experts in their field, but refused the idea of neanderthals being a human subspecies or a remotely intelligent or capable one, just because it didn't fit in their personal or religious worldview.
Upon discovery of neanderthals, leading anatomists at the time were like "yup, that's just a disease ridden regular human". More skeletons crop up and it's obvious that they have similar traits all across the world, and they are still going "Yup, so many disease ridden humans, how strange". Only after a whole cave in Vindia was found with more than 100 individuals that the scientific community half-unwillingly conceded that oh well there might have been another (sub)species parallel to homo sapiens. And that opened another can of worms and it's been decades of trying to prove how Neanderthals were intellectually inferior to Homo Sapiens.
Those fallacies still exist today, and happen to very prominent scientists. I recently read a scientific articles from the late nineties by two anatomists who reconstructed the vocal tract of neanderthals to see if they had acoustic ability for spoken language. While their wok on the reconstruction was impeccable, their conclusion was that neanderthals couldn't have evolved spoken language as they could only produce two consonants. Which is a ridiculous conclusion seeing that there are languages today that use two consonants.
So that's why people get worked up about a neanderthals having a flute and why we still have people saying a hyena made it in the comment section. It's totally wild to me how people can be prejudiced and kind of racist toward someone from tens of thousands of years ago.
I've had a similar theory for a long time, admittedly based on basically absolutely nothing. Looking back at history, say WWII, what would have happened if the Axis had won? History is written by the victors, as they say. I have to imagine that things would be perceived differently today, had that happened. Something along the lines of the Heroic Axis defeating the Evil Allies. Having observed the way Homo Sapiens often behave, I've long wondered if we were the Axis, and the Neanderthals the Allies, so to speak.
Wow, that is a much more capable and versatile instrument than I expecting for something so simple. 2.5 octave range and a scale/tuning that sounds pleasant even to modern ears.
Some of the comments here seem absolutely ridiculous. What is the probability that a perfect flute just happened by accident and survived until this day?
For whatever reason, a lot of people have this fixation that humans were somehow significantly less intelligent all the way until the modern industrial era. Based on what I've read, human brain hasn't significantly changed in tens of thousands of years. People in the stone age didn't have significantly lower cognitive abilities.
This idea is mind-blowing. Imagine humans surviving in nature without any of the technology we have today. There must have been a wealth of 'oral tradition' regarding plants, places, animals, and social norms. People must have been highly physically active, which naturally boosted their cognitive abilities. Social interaction must have been intense and tightly connected to survival.
When I think about all this I feel thrilled and comforted. Sometimes, I wish my life didn't revolve solely around abstract tasks and concepts.
To me this signifies the very core of society itself. Someone made this flute, meaning, they had the time to imagine and experiment. Meaning, they played a different role than hunters or foragers of food.
This was probably a gift to someone (concept of love / family) or some higher ups (strata / class in society)
And, the reason only a very small sample was found was because someone had the idea, tools and time to probably fashion one out of wood, as it may be more easily workable.
The Slovenian national museum has an English language leaflet describing the museum's top ten attractions. I particularly wanted to see the Neanderthal flute and an impressive silver torc. The torc (and a couple of other highlighted items) were missing. So before I left I asked about them. The staff did not give a fuck. It was a strange experience.
> The flute from Divje babe is the only one that was definitely made by Neanderthals. It is about 20,000 years older than other known flutes, made by anatomically modern humans.
Does this suggest that for some period of history, the Neanderthals were "technologically" ahead of Homo sapiens? At least in terms of flutes?
hard to argue “more technical”, but at a similar level. they weaved clothes, spoke language, built dwelllings, made art and interbred with us. they are part of us to this day.
I cannot describe how I feel hearing the sounds and tunes coming out of that flute. To know I am experiencing music with that particular timbre fills my soul with awe that we have this link to the past.
And the affirmation that it is sufficient to play most classical music pieces means that its range includes the diatonic scale. Similarly amazing (in the literal sense) is that other wind instrument techniques are possible. I don’t know if I am overhearing things but I noted the musician what harmonica folks call “bending”.
The thing that’s impressive to me is that it has the holes for controlling pitch. The reconstruction offers some guesses at the temperament, but I imagine there’s a lot of room for error. Presumably there are other instruments even older (it’s likely that the very first instruments would be percussion instruments which, even should they survive, would be difficult to identify as musical instruments tens of thousands of years later.
The first percussion instruments were almost certainly either rocks or sticks banged together. The sticks were presumably used just like claves (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claves).
Ancient peoples would have sucked the marrow out of bones. I can imagine someone doing so and there is a crack or hole in the center of the bone they are holding. As they suck out the last remaining marrow and try to get more but all they do is pull air through the hole. A noise is heard and they realize they can make a sound.
Because the size and the position of the holes create a scale which can be used for playing music. Via links shown in an earlier comment it's explained that it is a diatonic scale, but the point is really that if the holes had different sizes and the positions were different, even slightly, then you couldn't play music as we know it (see the video where Albinoni’s Adagio is played on a replica flute).
That's why it can be stated that it wasn't accidental.
Does this fuel the debate on Neanderthal being able to speak?
Could a people unable to speak be able to develop such an instrument with the right distances between holes etc..? That would mean a single individual not able to gain from previous generations' knowledge.
Neanderthals lived in small groups in sub-zero temps. They had to co-ordinate or they'd die. So I'd say, yeah, they could indeed speak and communicate in complex manners, much like us, or maybe even better.
There is this debate about why the music instinct was developed in humans at all, its role in developing social structures and the interplay with linguistic developmemt.
Such discoveries push further back the point where primate brains developed advanced musical capability: As it is less likely that Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens developed this independently, it was something they got from their common ancestor.
I wonder if the two branches of humanity ever jammed together in the forests of Europe. We share some DNA but otherwise the narrative is that it wasnt a harmonious coexistence.
Well, humans by themselves aren’t a harmonious coexistence either. That doesn’t prevent them from jamming together. Since a lot of humans also have some Neanderthal DNA in them, we know they did more together than just jamming.
That might seem plausible after reading just this article, but if you look at this video [0] you can see the way it was reconstructed, and hear it being played.
It strikes me as unnecessarily dismissive to insist that hyenas gnawed a perfect pentatonic flute; that really does just seem like some kind of weird jealousy... Especially when we have other examples of pentatonic bone flutes tens of thousands of years old.
One would think a blade of grass would be even older than the flute. Kids sometimes pick up grass whistling intuitively but its also something that is culturally passed down over the years at the playground, and might be quite old.
After watching the video, it seems that they are distinguishing it by the fact that it was a man-made object created for the specific purpose of producing music. This of course still allows for other pre-existing natural objects to be used for music playing.
For example, I assume prior to creating a flute, human ancestors likely batted rocks together or beat rocks against hollow logs to create a beat or variants of music.
But the significance of this finding is that it was purpose-made for creating music, which is interesting since it hints at the cultural impact that music may have played 60,000+ years ago.
(think of the 3 meanings of reed: an instrument turning human breath (life) into music, a writing tool (qalam), and of course a living creature itself)
[+] [-] crazygringo|2 years ago|reply
Which seems like it would be the coolest thing ever to 3D print. I'd love to have this on my bookshelf.
Unfortunately, I can only find a primitive playable version that was recreated from an illustration [1], and the museum gift shop sells a 3D-printed version that is unrestored and therefore unplayable [2] -- though the museum shop page doesn't seem to load any content [3].
But 4:34 [4] in their video shows the detailed scanned version with restoration that is playable: "To this end, we made a 3D model of the replica in which Ljuben Dimkaroski added the missing pieces."
I wonder how I could get/print one of those...?
(I also wonder whether a 3D printed plastic one would sound any good... Another source [5] indicates the playable version is a clay replica.)
[1] https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:500840
[2] https://www.3d-solutions.si/en/neanderthal-flute/
[3] https://www.nms.si/en/museum-shop/replicas
[4] https://youtu.be/3agcq7fSGC8?t=274
[5] https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/flute/w...
[+] [-] 100k|2 years ago|reply
It's not as old, but in Wernor Herzog's documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams", an archeologist plays a 30,000 year old vulture bone flute. It even uses the pentatonic scale!
Some links about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUCBBDV2Tzk https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2011/flute-of-forgotten-dreams/ https://www.npr.org/2009/06/24/105823127/a-little-flute-musi...
[+] [-] ddol|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karaterobot|2 years ago|reply
That feels a bit like an unsupported claim to me. It may be so, I am not saying Neanderthals weren't spiritual beings capable of sophisticated artistic expression. I am just wondering how you would confidently conclude that from the existence of (a thing which is probably) a flute.
In a slightly larger sense, it feels like a lot of claims about Neanderthals do this same thing: the presence of a specific artifact becomes not only evidence of technological sophistication, but proof of some deeper philosophical or spiritual consequence. I'm fascinated by early hominin, and try to follow this stuff as a lay person. So much interesting progress in such a short time. But, I'm not comfortable with the level of speculation I frequently see among communicators in this field, personally.
[+] [-] beezlebroxxxxxx|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mandmandam|2 years ago|reply
Given that, the fact that they use a scale so resonant with humans that it is still in very popular use sixty thousand years later - that's incredible. I felt the article drastically undersold the awesomeness of that, showing far too much restraint.
Have you seen the video where Bobby McFerrin leads a whole crowd to sync perfectly with each other, without rehearsal, thanks to the pentatonic scale [0]? That's spiritual stuff; it's 'sophisticated artistic expression'. That's the same scale that was (almost certainly) intentionally used to make this flute.
Here's a great comment from that video:
> What Bobby is doing here is transcendent. He gives an audience four notes of a five note scale, with no context, with no explanation, and the audience is intuitively able to grasp what the 5th note of the scale is. Not only that, the audience is able to intuitively understand the way the scale continues, above and below the range they were given. The fact that Bobby says this works with audience anywhere in the world speaks to a deep cross-cultural piece of the human experience and how we understand music and ourselves. Something is happening at the fundamental level here and I think it's lost on some people how truly profound this is.
Neanderthals intentionally crafted sophisticated flutes to play this precise scale 60,000 years ago? That's profound alright.
0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk
[+] [-] nomel|2 years ago|reply
It’s not just the flute. It’s the burial rituals, the art, the tools, the anatomy, the crossbreeding, etc. See any introduction to the topic.
[+] [-] tptacek|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] masswerk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MilStdJunkie|2 years ago|reply
So far as intelligent goes, the Neanderthals might have well been smarter than the first Sapiens to cross their path, but were disadvantaged by other factors, like a potentially ruinous birth rate, more restricted diet, and poorer (or more restricted) eyesight.
One interesting idea I've heard . . for a story . . imagine if sapiens spread HGT-style via a disease, that was transmitted by violence and rape. Like a bio-zombie, or the "Crossed" virus from "Crossed +100" (and which was invented by Garth Ennis, I guess). From the neanderthal perspective, it would have felt like Planet Zombie afterwards - and then they have to make their way among these terrifying new humanoids. The horror of the future. It would probably be more interesting moved to the present day, with a speciating change propagating via what looks like zombie bites, but which actually reflects the early stages of a new species, some weird more-fully-eusocial variant of homo adapted for extreme density.
[1] Which was really, really controversial in its day, and to some extent still is.
[+] [-] precompute|2 years ago|reply
As for the last paragraph... agreed. Even the most skillful warriors can be overtaken by a huge wave. Nothing to fight.
[+] [-] tsojer|2 years ago|reply
The finding (like many other) strongly implies that neanderthals had the ability of abstract thought and creative urges. This should in no way be surprising since neanderthals appear at a quite late and developed stage of the human evolution.
Neanderthals are generally quite an interesting topic, but equally interesting is the approach and prejudice of the scientific community towards them throughout the history. Research on neanderthals has been littered with logical fallacies by researchers who were absolute experts in their field, but refused the idea of neanderthals being a human subspecies or a remotely intelligent or capable one, just because it didn't fit in their personal or religious worldview.
Upon discovery of neanderthals, leading anatomists at the time were like "yup, that's just a disease ridden regular human". More skeletons crop up and it's obvious that they have similar traits all across the world, and they are still going "Yup, so many disease ridden humans, how strange". Only after a whole cave in Vindia was found with more than 100 individuals that the scientific community half-unwillingly conceded that oh well there might have been another (sub)species parallel to homo sapiens. And that opened another can of worms and it's been decades of trying to prove how Neanderthals were intellectually inferior to Homo Sapiens.
Those fallacies still exist today, and happen to very prominent scientists. I recently read a scientific articles from the late nineties by two anatomists who reconstructed the vocal tract of neanderthals to see if they had acoustic ability for spoken language. While their wok on the reconstruction was impeccable, their conclusion was that neanderthals couldn't have evolved spoken language as they could only produce two consonants. Which is a ridiculous conclusion seeing that there are languages today that use two consonants.
So that's why people get worked up about a neanderthals having a flute and why we still have people saying a hyena made it in the comment section. It's totally wild to me how people can be prejudiced and kind of racist toward someone from tens of thousands of years ago.
[+] [-] jaredhallen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mooreds|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] QuercusMax|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonwatkinspdx|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thedriver|2 years ago|reply
For whatever reason, a lot of people have this fixation that humans were somehow significantly less intelligent all the way until the modern industrial era. Based on what I've read, human brain hasn't significantly changed in tens of thousands of years. People in the stone age didn't have significantly lower cognitive abilities.
[+] [-] taopai|2 years ago|reply
When I think about all this I feel thrilled and comforted. Sometimes, I wish my life didn't revolve solely around abstract tasks and concepts.
[+] [-] kumarvvr|2 years ago|reply
This was probably a gift to someone (concept of love / family) or some higher ups (strata / class in society)
And, the reason only a very small sample was found was because someone had the idea, tools and time to probably fashion one out of wood, as it may be more easily workable.
[+] [-] todd8|2 years ago|reply
[1] Lana Neal, The Earliest Instrument: Ritual Power and Fertility Magic of the Flute in Upper Paleolithic Culture, https://www.amazon.com/Earliest-Instrument-Fertility-Paleoli...
[+] [-] masfuerte|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cubefox|2 years ago|reply
> The flute from Divje babe is the only one that was definitely made by Neanderthals. It is about 20,000 years older than other known flutes, made by anatomically modern humans.
Does this suggest that for some period of history, the Neanderthals were "technologically" ahead of Homo sapiens? At least in terms of flutes?
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|2 years ago|reply
I know this is astonishing, should be adjusting my world view on my own species ... but "no fighting in the WarRoom"
[+] [-] WalterBright|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdhcuidbebe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ldjkfkdsjnv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dkga|2 years ago|reply
And the affirmation that it is sufficient to play most classical music pieces means that its range includes the diatonic scale. Similarly amazing (in the literal sense) is that other wind instrument techniques are possible. I don’t know if I am overhearing things but I noted the musician what harmonica folks call “bending”.
[+] [-] dhosek|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] QuercusMax|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dghughes|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbos87|2 years ago|reply
"the size and the position of the holes cannot be accidental – they were made with the intention of musical expression."
Cannot? Were? I'm sorry, but there's no way to actually deduce that from the available information.
[+] [-] Tor3|2 years ago|reply
That's why it can be stated that it wasn't accidental.
[+] [-] dorfsmay|2 years ago|reply
Could a people unable to speak be able to develop such an instrument with the right distances between holes etc..? That would mean a single individual not able to gain from previous generations' knowledge.
[+] [-] smolder|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdhcuidbebe|2 years ago|reply
Surely not. Skills can be passed on by imitation and observation.
That being said, I’m certain they had language too.
Sign language, whistles and probably spoken language too since they probably co-develop.
[+] [-] precompute|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nologic01|2 years ago|reply
Such discoveries push further back the point where primate brains developed advanced musical capability: As it is less likely that Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens developed this independently, it was something they got from their common ancestor.
I wonder if the two branches of humanity ever jammed together in the forests of Europe. We share some DNA but otherwise the narrative is that it wasnt a harmonious coexistence.
[+] [-] layer8|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] piwi|2 years ago|reply
Search Divje Babe in https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.140...
It is amazing to see how much work is spent collecting pieces of evidence.
[+] [-] mandmandam|2 years ago|reply
It strikes me as unnecessarily dismissive to insist that hyenas gnawed a perfect pentatonic flute; that really does just seem like some kind of weird jealousy... Especially when we have other examples of pentatonic bone flutes tens of thousands of years old.
0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHy9FOblt7Y
[+] [-] F2hP18Foam|2 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZCWFcyxUhQ
[+] [-] asdff|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacurtis|2 years ago|reply
For example, I assume prior to creating a flute, human ancestors likely batted rocks together or beat rocks against hollow logs to create a beat or variants of music.
But the significance of this finding is that it was purpose-made for creating music, which is interesting since it hints at the cultural impact that music may have played 60,000+ years ago.
[+] [-] rpastuszak|2 years ago|reply
http://www.dar-al-masnavi.org/n-I-0001.html#1
(think of the 3 meanings of reed: an instrument turning human breath (life) into music, a writing tool (qalam), and of course a living creature itself)
[+] [-] ilyt|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] casenmgreen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] layer8|2 years ago|reply