Neanderthal Flute

For a flute it'll make minimal difference if it's plastic or clay or bone. You can find endless discussions on this on flute- and whistle forums, but it all boils down to the fact that the sound is produced by a standing wave of air inside a tube, and not by any vibrations of the actual tube material (i.e. totally different from string instruments). Though the material can make a difference when it comes to the actual part where you blow across an edge (very minimal differences are audible - and working with different and more or less difficult materials affect this). (I own flutes and whistles made of plastic or other synthetic materials, various types of metal, and wood)

fantastic stuff. I'm fiddling with screenshots from your [4] link video to try to pull 3D model from multi-image 3d model build tools. I too would very much like a print of their playable reconstruction on my desk. Please update if you get to a usable STL.

Ask them

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.

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.

0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk

> I am just wondering how you would confidently conclude that from the existence of (a thing which is probably) a flute.

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.

It's an interesting question, right? Arguably, orcas also do musical expression.

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.

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.

This video is all about the flute music without all the interesting sciency stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHy9FOblt7Y

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.

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.

Sir, we cannot allow a Flute Craft gap to develop.

I know this is astonishing, should be adjusting my world view on my own species ... but "no fighting in the WarRoom"

The age doesn't mean it was definitely made by Neandertals. It could have been acquired from other Homos.

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.

Its not spoken about openly, but there is a decent correlation between % of DNA from neanderthals and IQ

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).

> lot of room for error

I mean, when you have all day and nothing to do sitting around in your cave, you can make a lot of flutes and hopefully one will be error-free.

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.

Orcas have been teaching each other to sink boats, from what I was reading. They don't speak, but they do communicate.

> That would mean a single individual not able to gain from previous generations' knowledge.

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.

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.

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.

0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHy9FOblt7Y

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.

That reminds me, tangentially, of The Song of the Reed, by Rumi.

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)

Or just hitting something with a stick to drum

do some research on the pentatonic scale. it's an intelligent abstraction encoded in the placement of holes on this object.

if one were to randomly put four holes in a bone of the same size, the chances that they would produce a pentatonic scale are pretty rare.

if this were found in a human settlement, no one would bat an eye: the pentatonic scale has appeared in almost every human culture.

with that in mind, this object is far more likely to have been created by an intelligent being than to have been composed of random punctures.

Try punching random holes - and see if it creates a musical scale as we know it (go for a pentatonic scale). It's very unlikely that the placement and sizes (placement also affect sizes) of the holes will create that scale, even if you perform the random experiment again and again and again.

That's one part of the article I don't particularly like - what's a "spiritual being"? I consider myself fully human, but there's nothing in my psyche which I would consider "spiritual" - what does it even mean? I play music, I sing, I read literature, I write, I create, and more. Nothing of that is something I feel the need for using the word "spiritual" to describe.