Prehistoric flutes date to 42,000 years ago

42,000 years ago?

When I read about this plus the other thread about Prehistoric cave art there is no doubt that Ancient man was much more advanced than many give them credit for. A flute may be a simple wind instrument but to carve out various holes to create tones demonstrates fairly sophisticated intelligence IMO.

Your thoughts?

Prehistoric flutes date to 42,000 years ago

Good news, flute fans. You have prehistoric company -- flutes go back at least 42,000 years, longer ago than previously reported, conclude archaeologists looking at the likely era of the first modern human occupation of Europe.

In an upcoming report in the Journal of Human Evolution, led by carbon dating expert Thomas Higham of the United Kingdom's University of Oxford, experts reanalyzed Stone-Age artifacts from Geißenklösterle cave in southwestern Germany.

The "Aurignacian" artifacts...

reply to post by SLAYER69


B...but, the world is only 6000 years old!!

Mine world is crashin down around me!!

reply to post by SLAYER69


i don't believe what history tells me.


i know we have been around MUCH longer....


i just KNOW it. ever watch that south park episode?

reply to post by SoymilkAlaska


Agree i have the same feeling, It is all most like we have been at this life thing for a long time with something all ways happening to stop the human growth and advancement.

reply to post by SLAYER69


I bet the marrow tasted good from that bone....your going to quick for me here

i would be curious to know the tuning of the flute.

were the tones created from the carved holes in a particular key or harmonic scale?

harmonic musical tones are created from fairly simple ratios:

3:2 is the "perfect fifth"
4:3 the "perfect forth"
5:4 the "major third"
6:5 the "minor third"

thinkzone.wlonk.com...

as the OP notes, if these tunings where present, it would imply another level of sophistication, which lends itself to geometry in applied mathematics.


in western thought/folklore, Pythagoras is given credit for the discovery of music harmonies due to ratios, and thus western musical scales were born... this was only 2500 years ago.

en.wikipedia.org...

such discoveries illustrate that surely our ancestors were a bit more savvy than we tend to give them credit for.


anyhow... great find. i wonder if the musician rustled up her buddy on the log drum to back her up while she played a little jazz-flute!

I thought some members would find this interesting

reply to post by SLAYER69


now thats cool
main stream archeologists either get miss teached or just damn lie!
why? i cant figure an answer out to the why its the craziest agenda ive ever heard of so i cant see sense in lying!
but it seems logical we are being lied to about the past!
but.................why?

It's been posted a couple times already here on ATS -

Kandinsky's excellent thread:
Music is Forever - ancient flutes

New discovery: Humans playing the flute for at least 35,000 years

Originally posted by GezinhoKiko
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

now thats cool
main stream archeologists either get miss teached or just damn lie!
why? i cant figure an answer out to the why its the craziest agenda ive ever heard of so i cant see sense in lying!
but it seems logical we are being lied to about the past!
but.................why?

That is the question, why...what was I lied to about? Actually I have seen a deluge of propaganda in the last four decades, mainly anti-archaeology tirades by fringe believers trying to justify weak positions by attacking a strawman view of archaeologists

Originally posted by GezinhoKiko
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

now thats cool
main stream archeologists either get miss teached or just damn lie!
why? i cant figure an answer out to the why its the craziest agenda ive ever heard of so i cant see sense in lying!
but it seems logical we are being lied to about the past!
but.................why?

What on earth are you talking about. Where have they lied.

Who have you been listening to?

The Aborigines claim to have been here for 60,000 years. Why would they just appear out of thin air. 42,000 years ago is peanuts.

People just eat any old rubbish these days and think they are being lied to when the fact is they just don't bother...

Originally posted by frankensence
It's been posted a couple times already here on ATS -

Kandinsky's excellent thread:
Music is Forever - ancient flutes

New discovery: Humans playing the flute for at least 35,000 years

so go and read those, i am going to stay right here and read this one because its more convenient ..

Now that's interesting. Imagine if archaeologists find an ancient piano
I think I'd fall over faint. I always wish I could go back in time and watch how they conceived of these things. I wish I was there. Maybe it wasn't even used as a flute, like a part of an irrigation system or something. S+F

Makes sense. It was about 14,000 years ago Ian Anderson created Jethro Tull.

reply to post by SLAYER69


What I'd love to see is some genetic studies of the people from this time period. Who were these people, and are their descendants in the modern populations?

Have they been replaced or partially replaced by another population via admixture? South America is an excellent example of how fast admixture of a motivated reproductive force is, particularly in replacing male lines.

It's a fabulous find to be sure. While the dating of it seems fantastic from a technological point of view, even taking the most conservative or established of viewpoints on prehistory it's utterly believable if you look at the complexity of / intelligence required in an ancient art such as flintknapping - in comparison making a flute is relatively simple.

Ahem?
Gold mines in south africa 250,000 yrs ago
copper mine in africa 80,000 yrs old....
We HAVE been around a LONG while.....
I am sure we have had music for the most of that time.....
Flutes and drums come to mind as the most natural, but other things that make sound are not hard to make either.....
Wherever man has gathered to worship the sun/moon/stars/ or anything else, he has had music of some type.....
There is no doubt in my mind......

Looks like the same one the engineers used in the movie prometheus

reply to post by duffdean


Beat me to the punch! I was just thinking that!

Originally posted by AlchemicalMonocular
Makes sense. It was about 14,000 years ago Ian Anderson created Jethro Tull.

HAHAHAHAHA