On Tue, 07 Apr 1998 15:13:59 -0500, Glenn Morton wrote:
GM>Before anyone else posts on this, I think I will. There is a report in
>Science News April 4, 1998 p. 215 reporting a study April Nowell and Philip
>G. Chase which expresses doubt that the Neanderthal flute reported widely
>in the media last year was a flute. The original internet report can be
>found at
>
>http://www.zrc-sazu.si/www/iza/piscal.html
>
>I too made note of this flute and got into a discussion with Hugh Ross on
>whether it was a flute, as was believed by the discoverer, or a fire
>starter/hammer, as Hugh claimed(Ross, 1996, p. 11; Ross, 1997, p. 6-7).
>Because I made a public claim about this object, and now there is some
>report saying that the flute is nothing, I feel obliged by intellectual
>honesty to call everyone's attention to the counter-evidence. But then I
>also get to make a few comments about the flute again.
Down here at the Antipodes it takes 3-4 months for some journals to reach our
State Library! But I have now seen the Science News article that Glenn refers
to. I again thank Glenn for bringing this to our attention.
GM>The authors say that the bone chewed on and suggest that the holes were
>punched into the bones by canines and then rounded by normal erosion and
>wear.
Indeed, here is the article's opening summary:
"Amid much media fanfare, a research team in 1996 trumpeted an ancient,
hollowed-out bear bone pierced on one side with four complete or partial holes
as the earliest known musical instrument. The perforated bone, found in an
Eastern European cave, represents a flute made and played by Neandertals at
least 43,000 years ago, the scientists contended. Now it's time to stop the
music, say two archaeologists who examined the purported flute last spring.
On closer inspection, the bone appears to have been punctured and gnawed by
the teeth of an animal-perhaps a wolf-as it stripped the limb of meat and
marrow, report April Nowell and Philip G. Chase, both of the University of
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. "The bone was heavily chewed by one or more
carnivores, creating holes that became more rounded due to natural processes
after burial," Nowell says. "It provides very weak evidence for the origins of
[Stone Age] music." Nowell presented the new analysis at the annual meeting
of the Paleoanthropology Society in Seattle last week. (Bower B., "Doubts
aired over Neandertal bone 'flute'," Science News, Vol. 153, No. 14, April
4,1998, p215)
GM>The original discoverer, Ivan Turk, maintains his claim that this was
>a flute
Yes. The article says that "Turk...still views the specimen as a flute."
"Nowell and Chase examined the bone with the permission of its discoverer,
Ivan Turk of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences in Ljubljana (SN: 11/23/96,
p. 328). Turk knows of their conclusion but still views the specimen as a flute."
(Bower B.,1998, p215).
But one has to question Turk's objectivity, since in the original report he
claimed that he could not discover traces of teeth on the bone:
"Of course, it must be first proved that the holes are man-made, and in this
particular case it would probably be Neanderthal man who was responsible.
The next likely explanation is that the holes were made by some large carnivore
even though traces of teeth on the bone have not yet been discovered." (Turk
I., Dirjec J. & Kavur B., "The oldest musical instrument in Europe discovered
in Slovenia?", 5 December 1996. http://www.zrc-sazu.si/www/iza/piscal.html)
yet a couple of visiting archaeologists inspected the bone and discovered such
evidence!
GM>The major item which supports the new claims include evidence of
>gnawing on the ends of the flute. The logic is that if the bone was not fresh,
>the animals would not have gnawed on it. However, I once owned a puny
>little dog and he used to gnaw on old bones in which there was little in the
>way of nutrients other than calcium. So I find the evidence of gnawing less
>than devastaing, especially if it requires that no canid gnaw old bones as my
>puny little dog used to do.
What a "puny little dog" does today in a suburban backyard is irrelevant since:
a) domestic dogs didn't even exist 43,000 years ago; and b) domestic dogs
don't usually have the option of fresh, meat-filled bones. What *is* relevant is
what wolves and other wild carnivores do:
"Both open ends of the thighbone contain clear signs of gnawing by carnivores,
Nowell asserts. Wolves and other animals typically bite off nutrient-rich tissue
at the ends of limb bones and extract available marrow. If Neandertals had
hollowed out the bone and fashioned holes in it, animals would not have
bothered to gnaw it, she says." (Bower B.,1998, p215)
GM>The items that makes me think Ivan Turk is correct is that the 2 complete
>and 2 partial holes are aligned quite remarkably, all on the same side of the
>bone. While I could see that an animal might puncture a bone, to have the
>punctures aligned with the correct musical spacing as is outlined at
>http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/fl-compl.htm seems remarkable.
The odds odds of the teeth being in roughly the same place as a musical
instrument is between 1:35 and 1:600:
"The odds that such a match would happen randomly, according to a statistical
analysis which musicologists and flute makers have looked over and critiqued,
are at most 1 in 35 and are probably closer to 1 in 600." (Rotheisler T., "Flute
concerts in a cave," Alberta Report, May 05, 1997 Internet Edition.
http://albertareport.com/24arcopy/24a21cpy/2421ar01.htm).
But the odds become a virtual certainty when it is realised that: a) there are
several musical scales possible:
"Musicologists raise another point: the rest of the flute is missing, and there
are an infinite number of other musical scales that the notes could fit. "It's
conceivable that other notes on the flute wouldn't conform," says Mr. Fink.
"Unless we find a complete Neanderthal flute, we can't know whether the rest
of this flute would confirm my findings." (Rotheisler, 1997).
and b) probably thousands of bones are found and discarded and only those
selected to confirm the archaeologist's theory are kept.
"There are caveats. One is that archeologists have often had to revise their
initial guesses of the functions of artifacts...Another is that laymen should
always be doubly careful about believing scientists when their research leads
them to what they expected to find: the "diatonic" bone flute conforms to Mr.
Fink's preference for Western music, as well as to Ms. Blackwell's beliefs about
the sophistication of the Neanderthals." (Rotheisler, 1997).
GM>I would expect many more pseudo flutes to be reported in
>the literature if animals were leaving circular puncture marks on bones and
>that these objects would have holes that never quite aligned. But as it is,
>objects with round and closely aligned holes are quite rare, there being
>around 30 of them in the archeological record and the majority of them are
>also broken as is the one from Slovenia.(Bahn and Vertut, p. 68-69) This
>rarity seems to me to argue against them being produced via carnivore
>activity because with the great number of carnivores over the millennia,
>they should have left a greater horde of punched bones
This would only be a valid point if we knew exactly how many punched bones
are found and discarded. But in any event Nowell is aware of what sort of
holes wolves and other carnivores make in old bones:
"Complete and partial holes on the bone's shaft were also made by carnivores,
says Nowell. Carnivores typically break open bones with their scissorlike cheek
teeth. Uneven bone thickness and signs of wear along the borders of the holes,
products of extended burial in the soil, indicate that openings made by cheek
teeth were at first less rounded and slightly smaller, the researchers hold.
Moreover, the simultaneous pressure of an upper and lower tooth produced a
set of opposing holes, one partial and one complete, they maintain." (Bower
B.,1998, p215).
GM>Secondly, the flute looks exactly like other objects which are universally
>acclaimed as being bone flutes. There is a bone flute found at Isturitz in
>France, (Passemard, 1944, plate VII) This particular flute has two holes a
>broken third hole similar to what is found on the Neanderthal flute. Other
>near identical flutes made by modern man and accepted as such can be seen in
>Megaw, (1960)
All this might mean is that all examples of flutes are suspect, if carnivores can
punch holes similar to a flutes and archaeologists select among them for those
that conform to their theories. After all, archaeologists are only human and
discovery of an ancient flute carries more prestige and grants than old bones
gnawed by carnivores!
In any event, there is no problem with "flutes made by modern man" since we
know that modern men make flutes. But we don't know that Neandertals made
flutes. Even if these latter were flutes, there is no way to be sure that
Neandertals actually made them. They only appear when modern man could
also be present. Since we know that modern man made flutes when
Neandertals were not present and Neandertals did not make flutes when
modern man was not present, it is a reasonable hypothesis that modern man
made them.
Besides, this particular fragment is too short to be certain that it was a flute:
"The bone is too short to incorporate the diatonic scale's seven notes, counter
Nowell and Chase. Working with Pennsylvania musicologist Robert Judd, they
estimate that the find's 5.7-inch length is less than half that needed to cover the
diatonic spectrum." (Bower B.,1998, p215).
[...]
The article concludes with Nowell's assessment that "it's a big leap of faith to
conclude that this was an intentionally constructed flute":
"The recent meeting presentation is "a most convincing analysis," comments J.
Desmond Clark of the University of California, Berkeley, although it's possible
that Neandertals blew single notes through carnivore-chewed holes in the bone.
"We can't exclude that possibility," Nowell responds. "But it's a big leap of
faith to conclude that this was an intentionally constructed flute." (Bower B.,
1998, p215)
Steve
"Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented."
--- Dr. William Provine, Professor of History and Biology, Cornell University.
http://fp.bio.utk.edu/darwin/1998/slides_view/Slide_7.html
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3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au
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Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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