On Sun, 20 Oct 1996 16:34:34, Glenn Morton wrote:
[...]
GM>This is an important fact to remember as we go back through the
>history of musical instruments. If music is most often used for
>religious purposes, the fact that a culture made music is probably
>indicative of religion.
There are several fallacies in the above. First it is assumed that
the early bone whistles are "musical instruments" in the same sense
as modern "musical instruments". Second it assumes that early man
made whistles for "music", when he could have made them for
more prosaic uses, such as hunting food to stay alive. Third, the
fact that "music is most often used for religious purposes" by
modern Homo sapiens (even that's debatable), does not mean that it
was so used by ancient Homo sapiens, let alone non-Homo
sapiens hominids.
Dennet points out that it is fallacious to interpret ancient behaviour
according to modern motives:
"What is crucial to any such interpretation of human behaviour based
on artefacts is the assumption that the person who crafted the object
would not have gone to such lengths to make these things if they
didn't strongly believe that they worked. People have long valued
nonfunctional decoration for its own sake, but if people have devoted
the bulk of their lives to making doodads (are they weapons?
calculating devices? culinary tools?) or a single great thingumabob (a
fort? a temple? a storehouse?), they presumably thought, rightly or
wrongly, that there was a pressing requirement to make such a thing.
So if one cannot show that the artefacts did perform some valuable
function, one is left having to explain how their makers could have
been so convinced of a falsehood. At this point I detect serious
confusion on the part of at least some of the contributors to this
volume. They have a tendency to reserve "cognition" for such
elevated or "cultural" topics as religion, ritual and style of
government, as opposed to such mundane practicalities as
agriculture and self-defence-as if one could farm or hunt or build a
shelter without cognition, but needed cognition to engage in ritual
when bury Allied with this is the surely anachronistic tendency to
contrast religious practices with "functional" practices. To our eyes,
the systematic placement of carefully conserved seeds into the ground
in the spring is not a ritual, while the systematic placement of
ancestors bones into the ground on some other occasion is. But this is
only because we know the former "works" and the latter, presumably,
does not. The people who engaged in both practices made no such
distinction. For them a sacrificial altar and a dry storehouse were
equally functional, equally essential protections against the
vicissitudes of nature. Presumably these people really believed in the
efficacy of what they were doing; they were not, like many of today's
masters of ceremony, just "keeping a tradition alive". (Dennett D.,
"Sifting the evidence for belief in the past", review of "The Ancient
Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology", by Renfrew C. &
Zubrow E.B.W., eds, Cambridge University Press, pp195, New
Scientist, 6 August 1994, p42)
Also, Leakey points out that we unconsciously read into ancient art
our modern meanings:
"Even if we were to witness the slice of Upper Paleolithic life in
which the cave paintings played their role, would we understand the
meaning of the whole? I doubt it. We have only to think of the
stories related in modern religions to appreciate the importance of
cryptic symbols that may be meaningless outside the culture to which
they belong. Think of the meaningfulness to a Christian of an image
of a man holding a staff, with a lamb at his feet. And think of the
absence of any such meaning to someone who has not heard the
Christian story. Mine is not a message of despair but of caution. The
ancient images we have today are fragments of an ancient story, and
although the urge to know what they mean is great, it is wise to
accept the probable limits of our understanding. Moreover, there has
been a strong, and probably inevitable, Western bias in the
perception of prehistoric art." (Leakey R., "The Origin of
Humankind", Phoenix: London, 1994, pp103-104)
GM>ANCIENT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS MADE BY MODERN MAN
>
>The history of music and musical instruments goes a long way back
>into the past. The oldest musical notation that I was able to find
>goes back to 800 B.C. It is carved on a stone and is
>undecipherable (3) The earliest historical references to music come
>from China and Mesopotamia. In 2697 B.C. the Emperor Huang Ti
>(Huang Ti means Emperor in Mandarin so whoever wrote the
>Encyclopedia Britannica article failed to get the emperor name-GRM)
>sent Ling Lun to make bamboo flutes. (4) The Sumerians had
>stringed instruments, reed instruments and drums (3).
Of course, the Biblical reference to "the harp and flute" (Gn
4:21), may be the most ancient historical reference of all.
GM>But music is found much earlier than that, although the number of
>instruments become much fewer. The reason for this is the
>durability of wood and skin artefacts. The only objects which
>appear from much earlier than this are those made of very durable
>material, such as bone, although bone is not as durable as many
>would surmise. Because of the progressive destruction of
>perishable musical instruments, the bone flute and bone whistles
>become the major survivors from earlier periods.
Firstly, "the bone flute" and "bone whistles" are one and the same.
Secondly, this is assuming, without any evidence, that there *were*
"perishable musical instruments" made of "wood and skin". For all
we know, "bone...whistles" may be all there were.
GM>From layers dated 13-15,000 years ago, a beautiful eagle bone
>flute was found. Marshack describes it,
>
>"In cabinet number one at the Musee des Antiquites Nationales in
>1965, there lay a tiny gray, broken bit of hollow eagle bone. It was
>some 4 1/2 inches long (11 cm), had been cut by a flint knife at one
>end, and was broken at thee other. It came from a level approximately
>13,000 to 15,000 years old, was dated as late middle Magdalenian and
>came from the same site of Le Placard that gave us the two earlier
>Magdalenian batons. Worked or decorated bird bones are not uncommon in
>the Upper Paleolithic. Some have blow holes cut into them, indicating
>their use as whistles or flutes, and they can be blown to give a high,
>piping, flute sound." (5)
>
>This beautiful flute is engraved on the outside by two linear sequences
>of parallel lines, and six sets of nested chevrons. The flute, as a
>flute, is very simple and could only make one sound. It had no finger
>holes to alter the pitch. Thus, technically this was a whistle.
Then why not call it a "whistle"? :-)
GM>The oldest picture of a flute may be from an 18,000 year old
>French site. Coles and Higgs observe,
>
>At Les Trois Freres (Ariege), a semi-human figure seems to be playing
>either a musical bow (although musically this is not in the correct
>position) or a flute. The association of the semi-humans at this site,
>with grouped animals, seems to indicate some ceremonial activity,
>whether it be sympathetic magic or not and music by this time had been
>in existence for some thousands of years."(6)
If the difference can't be distingished between "musical bow" and
"a flute", then maybe it was neither?
GM>Another type of whistle used in ancient times was a reindeer
>phalange which was drilled through. When blown, it whistles.
>Megaw observed of these,
Another "whistle"!
GM>"The earliest evidence we have for blown instruments are those
>made from reindeer phalanges pierced on one surface which when
>blown across between the tips of the articular condyles emit a
>shrill whistle. Often regarded -- largely on the evidence of
>modern parallels -- as decoy whistles, these objects, whose method
>of playing is exactly that of the modern cross-flute, have been
>found in Upper Palaeolithic occupation sites in France, at for
>example La Madeleine and Solutre, and in Central Europe at Dolni
>Vestonice and the cave of Pekarna. They have also occurred on
>comparable sites in North America. "(7)
Note: "decoy whistles"! This is hunting, not art or religion:-)
GM>Megaw's description of the phalanges is accurate, but phalanges
>are not the earliest evidence of blown instruments, but that comes
>later. The claim for the "earliest" is one that is found quite
>often, and is usually wrong. I cited Megaw in order to convey what
>a phalange whistle was. Megaw continues (I will insert the
>approximate age of the various sites, that I could find,in Megaw's
>text),
>
>"To return to our catalogue: at the Hungarian cave site of
>Istallosko,[Istallosko-There is a 31,000 B.P. but this particular
>flute may have been from younger levels. see (9)--GRM] in an
>occupation level dated to Aurignacian II, the excavators found not
>only two pierced reindeer phalanges but also the femur of a cave
>bear having three holes, one in the centre of the posterior surface
>and two on the anterior. The larger of these near the proximal
>epiphysis measures some 11mm. across, close to the size of the lip
>hole of a modern cross-blown flute, and as the position of the
>epiphysis does not allow the lips to cover the open end it must be
>presumed that here was an early ancestor of the notch flutes of
>present-day primitive groups. Be that as it may, Istallosko does
>not stand alone, for several other Central European cave sites of
>an Aurignacian II date have produced pierced long bones. Lokve in
>what used to be Fiume had a curved bone -- once more that of a cave
>bear -- with three 'finger holes' pierced on one side. The bird's
>ulna from Drachen, Mixnitz, has three large holes and several
>smaller -- a more doubtful candidate. ... On the other hand in a
>bone from Salzhofen in Austria we have a closer analogy to
>Istallosko with two holes on one side and three on the other.
>Returning to France, in the Aurignacian levels of the cave of
>Isturitz [~27,000 B.P. based on it being a Perigordian site See
>ref. 5, p.96-97--GRM], Basses-Pyrenees, was found part of the
>cubitus of a large bird, which the excavators think may have been a
>vulture. The broken end preserves part of a sub-rectangular hole,
>while below it are two other complete holes. In the later series
>of excavations of the Aurignacian III levels at the same site some
>seven other pierced bird bones were found, one having indications
>of four holes of which three must have been finger holes. The
>simple notch decoration which ornament it was found on other
>examples as well. Coming full circle the nearest parallel to
>Istallosko is to be found in a reindeer radius from Badegoule dated
>by its association with Solutrean leaf-shaped blades[Solutrean was
>approx. 20,000 years B.P.--GRM]. At the damaged distal end is one
>large hole repeated by a smaller on the opposite side which also
>has a second hole at the proximal end."(8)
These more recent finds, well within the "young-Adam" range, sound
more like true musical instruments, as opposed to the earlier
whistles.
GM>Of the Isturitz find, the original report, written in French,
>describes it thusly,
[...]
GM>"At last, I uncovered in 1921 a piece which is without doubt,
>unique, a big bird bone, unfortunately broken at the ends, but
>because still carried three holes, like that of some sort of flute.
>It is without doubt the most ancient musical instrument found."
>[trans. by David Morton]
Unless it could be played, it could have been something else. Holes
in a piece of broken bone could mean anything. For example, it could
have been an ornament with holes to thread cord through.
GM>Gravettian sites in eastern Europe, also have yielded several
>flutes. Coles and Higgs report,
>
>"Also in Moravia are the important Gravettian sites of Predmost,
>Pavlov and Brno. At Pavlov a large number of hut plans have been
>identified, oval, round and five-sided in shape, with some postholes and
>hearths. The associated industry included decorated bone and ivory
>objects including animals and human figures, and a number of phalange
>whistles; the occupation has been radiocarbon dated to c. 25,000
>B.P."(11)
>
>At Dolni Vestonice, Czechoslovakia, flutes are found. This site is
>approximately 27,000 years old. Coles and Higgs relate,
>
>"Decorative objects include perforated shells and other pendants, and
>tubular beads; bone tubes, one with a plug of resin, probably were
>panpipes."(12)
Maybe they were all "Decorative objects".
GM>The oldest flute today, comes from Abri Blanchard from 30,000
>years ago.(13)
And again, well within the "young-Adam" range.
GM>NEANDERTHAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
>
>Up to this point all musical instruments have been younger than
>30,000 years B.P. I wanted to establish above what instruments
>have been preserved which were made by modern man between 15,000
>and 30,000 years ago. There are two kinds of instruments, phalange
>whistles and flutes. Amazingly, these same instruments are found
>at Neanderthal sites but in spite of this, statements continue to
>be made that the oldest flute is 30,000 years old made by modern
>man. These statments are simply not true.
Glenn doesn't know that. Caves can be used by many occupants. It is
possible that H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis occupied the
same cave at different times "between 15,000 and 30,000 years". It
is possible that *all* these "musical instruments" were made and
used by H. sapiens and not by H. neanderthalensis.
GM>Examples of these kinds of statements are,
>
>Bowers:"Music assumed an important role; the first known instrument, a
>bone flute found in France, dates to around 30,000 years ago."(14)
It all depends on what one means by "known instrument". Some of the
earlier, claimed "instruments" may have been decorations. Unless
they can be demonstrated to be capable of generating music, they
cannot be claimed to be "known instruments". And a bird decoy
whistle is not a musical instrument, at least in the sense that
Glenn is using the term.
GM>Hugh Ross:"Bipedal, tool-using, large-brained primates (called
>hominids by anthropologists) may have roamed the earth as long ago
>as one million years, but religious relics and altars date back
>only 8,000 to 24,000 years. Thus, the secular archaeological date
>for the first spirit creatures is in complete agreement with the
>biblical date.
>
"Some differences, however, between the Bible and secular
>anthropology remain. By the biblical definition, these hominids
>may have been intelligent mammals, but they were not humans. Nor
>did Adam and Eve physically descend from them. (According to
>Genesis 1:26-28 the human species was created complete and
>brand-new by God through His own personal miraculous intervention.)
>Even here, though, support from anthropology is emerging. New
>evidence indicates that the various hominid species may have gone
>extinct before, or as a result of, the appearance of modern humans.
>At the very least,'abrupt transitions between [hominid] species' is
>widely acknowledged."(15)
>
>Ross's reference was to Bowers article (14).
As stated previously, while I agree with Ross' "young-Adam" basic
thrust, I see no need to claim that "these hominids..were not
humans". They were not *fully human*, but I daresay it H.
erectus and H. neanderthalensis were alive today, they would be
recognised as human, albeit not fully human.
GM>Bernard Ramm objected to an old creation of Adam.
>
>Ramm:"In the fourth and fifth chapters of Genesis we have lists of
>names, ages of people, towns, agriculture, metallurgy, and music. This
>implies the ability to write, to count, to build, to farm, to smelt, and
>to compose. Further, this is done by the immediate descendants of Adam.
>Civilization does not reveal any evidence of its existence till about
>8000 B.C. or, to some 16,000 B.C. We can hardly push it back to 500,000
>B.C. It is problematic to interpret Adam as having been created at
>200,000 B.C. or earlier, with civilization not coming into existence
>till say 8000 B.C."(16)
Ramm's point is that *civilization* "does not reveal any evidence of
its existence till about 8000 B.C. or, to some 16,000 B.C." and
therefore "We can hardly push it back to 500,000 B.C." or
even "200,000 B.C." Ramm (and I) would therefore look towards a
"Young Adam" at less than 100,000.
It is worth noting that Glenn believes is an "Old Adam", ie. that
Adam was a Homo habilis/erectus dating back 5.5 *million years*.
There is of course no evidence of *civilisation* existing that far
back. All the evidence points to an emerging language, art, cuture,
and technology, which had its full flowering betwenn 50-100 thousand
years ago.
GM>(So what are Christians to think when they find out that
>Neanderthals 80,000 years ago were composing music and making
>musical instruments 90-100,000 years ago?)
The is no conclusive evidence that "Neanderthals 80,000 years ago
were composing music", let alone that they were "making musical
instruments".
But if it turned out that they were musical instruments (in the
fullest sense of the word), this "Christian" would have no problem
with it. The Pre-Adamite model that I hold, would see Adam (Genesis
2 "Adam") as being drawn from a pool of anatomically modern hominids
(Genesis 1 "man"), who had advanced human language, art, culture and
technology up to a point where Adam was ready to be placed in a
perfect environment (the Garden of Eden - Gn 2:8) taught by God (Gn
2:16), and when all was ready, put to the test (Gn 3), as a
representative of all mankind (1Cor 15:22; Rom 5:12-19).
GM>Tattersall:"The subject of behavior is complicated by the fact
>that whereas in Europe Upper Paleolithic stone and bone tools were
>associated from the beginning with evidence of 'creativity' in the
>form of engravings, sculpture, notation, musical instruments, and
>so forth, this was not the case in the Levant. What's more, the
>earliest Upper Paleolithic tools from Boker Tachtit, while fully
>Upper Paleolithic in concept, were made using techniques that had
>been current in the Middle Paleolithic. However, since
>anatomically modern humans had made Middle Paleolithic tools for
>the first 50 kyr of their existence, we probably shouldn't find
>this too surprising."(17)
>
>Christians have uncritically accepted these statements and used
>them as support for apologetical positions. I have found it
>curious that Christian apologists would so quickly grab hold of the
>Upper Paleolithic European "artistic explosion" as evidence of a
>recent creation of Adam. As Tattersall claims, the "explosion" was
>in Europe not the Middle East; and indeed, the advent of art in the
>Middle East was later than in Europe. Do we really think that Adam
>was created in SW France? The French probably do, but that is an
>uncertain apologetic for Christianity.
Glenn is well aware that "Christian apologists" who see "the Upper
Paleolithic European "artistic explosion" (c. 35,000 BC) as evidence
of a recent creation of Adam" hold that Adam was created in the
Middle East and his ancestors migrated to "Europe", "SW France" and
elsewhere from there.
Glenn evidently hopes to muddy the waters, in order to discredit
such `young Adam' "Christian apologists" like Ross and Ramm, so that
his 5.5 mya Homo habilis/erectus `old-Adam' theory can be more
readily accepted.
GM>While Bowers (a journalist), Ross (an astronomer) and Ramm (a
>theologian writing before these discoveries) might be forgiven for
>not being aware of even more ancient Neanderthal-made, musical
>instruments, Tattersall, an anthropolosist should be familiar with
>the literature of his profession. (And a Christian apologist
>should be extremely thorough.) These objects were found as early
>as in 1955 and reported in the scientific literature by 1967 by
>McBurney.
Ramm's book was first published in the USA in 1954, so he can
blamed for not being "aware" of things that were found a year later
and not reported until 13 years later!
And again, it all turns on what one interprets a piece of bone with
holes in it, as! :-)
GM>What this illustrates is what Bednarik, an Australian
>anthropologist, has called the Eurocentric bias of anthropology,
>the belief that all things anthropological started in Europe and
>the Upper Paleolithic. In point of fact, neither art nor music
>began in Europe.
I doubt if these people actually say that 'all things
anthropological started in Europe". But there is no doubt it had its
full flowering in Europe.
GM>I have been able to find many more examples of musical
>instruments which were made by Neanderthal. The most recent find
>was one I have mentioned several times is also the youngest. It is
>a flute, which is made in the same fashion as the Upper Paleolithic
>flutes made by modern men noted above, contrary to recent claims
>made on this reflector. Thus the tradition of flute making
>continues unaltered across the Neanderthal/Modern man transition.
I would have no problem if "Neanderthal" man made bone whistles or
even true musical instruments. But the fact that wherever they are
found, H. sapiens is nearby, suggests to me that H. sapiens made and
used them, and H. neanderthalensis from time to time occupied the
same sites.
GM>David Keys writes,
>
>"Deep inside a cave in Slovenia, in the north of former Yugoslavia,
>archaeologists have unearthed the world's oldest true musical
>instrument - a flute which appears to have been made by
>Neanderthals around 45,000 years ago."(18)
Note: "*appears* to have been made by Neanderthals! It could
equally have been made by H. sapiens. The acid test would be if a
"musical instrument" was found *before* H. sapiens appeared on the
scene.
GM>But like lots of claims for being the oldest, it isn't.
>Neanderthals made phalange whistles (just like anatomically modern
>man. One was found at La Quina(19), which dates to 64,000 years
>ago.(20) This is a musical instrument from prior to the time Hugh
>Ross says should be. Dr. Ross has repeatedly stated that it is
>Biblically unacceptable for there to be any evidence of spirituality
>prior to 60,000 years.
This is quibbling about a gap of 4 thousand years, from the man who
has a gap of 4 *million* years in his theory! :-) I'm sure that Ross
intends 60,000 years as a round figure, and if necessary his theory
could accommodate an extra 4,000 years.
Besides, how does Glenn know that *Neanderthals* made these
"whistles" and not "anatomically modern man"?
GM>As long as Christians make these types of claims, we will set the
>Bible up to be disproven all too easily.
And as I have pointed out before to Glenn, but to no avail :-(, it
would only be Ross' *interpretation* of the Bible that would be
"disproven", not the Bible itself.
GM>He writes:
>"In the case of the cave drawings and pottery fragments, the
>degree of abstractness suggests the expression of something more than
>just intelligence. Certainly no animals species other than human beings
>has ever exhibited the capacity for such sophisticated expression.
>However, the dates for these finds are well within the biblically
>acceptable range for the appearance of Adam and Eve -- somewhere between
>10,000 and 60,000 years ago according to Bible scholars who have
>carefully analyzed the genealogies. Since the oldest art and fabrics
>date between 25,000 and 30,000 years ago, no contradiction exists
>between anthropology and Scripture on this issue."(21)
>
>But this is not the end of the Neanderthal musical instruments. They
>extend much further into the past.
Again, these are not necessarily "Neanderthal" nor "musical
instruments". While I don't necessarily agree with Ross, bits of bone
with holes in them, that could have been made by H. sapiens, are no
problem to his theory.
GM>The oldest flute I have been able to find is a from Haua Fteah in
>Libya. It is had at least two perforations and thus was much more
>complex than the first flute I mentioned above, the Le Placard Eagle
>bone flute.
A whole *two* "perforations" makes it "much more complex"? :-) My
daughter's flute has *sixteen* "perforations" - now that *is*
"complex"!
[continued]
God bless.
Steve
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