Prehistoric music

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Flute made of griffon vulture bones in four views, Vogelherd Cave (40,000 years old, Aurignacien), UNESCO World Heritage " Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura ", Museum of the University of Tübingen MUT
Replica of Flute 1 from the Geißenklösterle 35,000 to 40,000 years old

Prehistoric music includes from Prehistory and Early History originating found objects that presumably as musical instruments were used and other sound generators, and all musical expressions of mankind from the first anatomical conditions (for voice training) and technological possibilities (for the production of sound modules) to the beginning of the early High cultures , as they are reconstructed by musical archeology with the analytical methods of archeology and musicology . The question of the extent to which knowledge of ethnomusicology about cultures in which sound tools similar to the found objects - primarily certain flutes and idiophones - are still used today, allow conclusions to be drawn.

One type of music was probably a central area of ​​creative creation and human culture as early as prehistoric times . There is evidence that beyond the everyday entertaining use of music, ceremonies were held with musical accompaniment. Furthermore, the first sound generators could have been used to transmit signals when hunting or as a lure. The oldest finds - made from pieces of antler and bones - date from the time of the first appearance of anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) in Europe about 45,000 years ago. Relics made of organic , ie perishable materials can only be found in exceptional cases.

Musical archeology

By evaluating finds, musical archeology provides important information about the way people lived in prehistoric times. The stages of human development from the use of stone as a material to the extraction and use of metals are also reflected in the musical instruments. The context of finds and - in later historical epochs - pictorial traditions (paintings, sculptures, decorated vessels) testify to different types of instruments and their use.

Observations in traditional cultures that still exist today can reveal how prehistoric people used their instruments. For example, the shaman drum is still one of the most important devices in Eurasian shamanism . The Inuit live in very similar climatic conditions to the hunters and gatherers of the Upper Paleolithic . They are equipped with percussion devices such as drums or buzzers. In contrast to percussion devices today, aerophones are mostly only used for ritual acts. They are also not known as signals or lures.

Music, language and human development

The scientific theories about the earliest forms of music practice correspond to those about the earliest appearance of language . For early humans, nature is the point of contact. By imitating sounds and becoming aware of imitation, people begin to reflect on themselves. The following applies to the development of primeval language: the more catchy the rhythm, the easier the repetition and the more the meaning emerges. The perception can be imagined as having been there before. The early writings of Greek culture are intended for musical performance and contain valuable information on the cultural and technological progress of their time. The increased use of writing and language for the organization and order of society is largely known in Europe during the Roman imperial period. Music is part of social behavior then and now: from the daily acquisition of food to love and procreation to funeral.

historical overview

The oldest finds of prehistoric musical instruments, made of stone and bone, date from the time of the first appearance of anatomically modern man in Europe about 45,000 years ago. Since there are no written sources from this period, only the finds themselves can serve as a database. The oldest finds are in poor condition. Although materials such as bones or antlers are very stable, they are often only preserved in fragments.

Bullroarers and Phalangenpfeifen seem already associated with Neanderthals -Fundstellen (Hungary: Tata) and Aurignacian -zeitlichen finds (Moravia: Pekárna -Höhle, southwestern Germany: Vogelherd Cave) to stand.

A richly decorated buzzing wood made of reindeer antlers (France: Roche de Birol cave near Lalinde in the Dordogne) and a drumstick made of the same material (southwest Germany: spectacle cave ) come from the Magdalenian horizon .

Musical instruments made of stone and bone

Idiophones

A find from the Divje babe cave known as the bone flute
  • Scrapers are ribbed objects that are played by scrubbing and mark rhythms by ratcheting or scratching. In 1934, Otto Seewald reported that such percussion devices were used by the North American Huichol Indians the night before they set out to hunt . In the Pekarna Cave, a piece in the shape of a perforated stick was recovered along with musical instruments. Finds: Geißenklösterle near Blaubeuren (ribbon-shaped antler stick and notched ulna of a common raven); Dolní Věstonice (wolf bones, gravettias); Spectacle cave near Blaubeuren (notched ivory ribbons, Magdalenian )
  • Drum mallets: A T-shaped reindeer antler artifact is equivalent to angled mallets used when playing frame drums. Find: spectacle cave near Blaubeuren ( Magdalenian layer IV)
  • Stalagmites and stalactites as sound bodies: stalactites from the caves of southern France (Dordogne) show traces of impact.

Aerophones
Middle Stone Age buzzing devices from Pritzerbe . In the district museum Jerichower Land
  • Pipes and horns
    • Phalangeal whistles : Whistling of finger or toe bones in high, slightly soft tones play a key role in hunting activities and fertility rituals and beyond the end of the last post-glacial period.
    • Long bone pipes: They are made from bear, swan or human thigh bones and already have a larger pitch range.
    • Flute pipes: Such music occurs either with one or both ends closed and with one or more finger holes. It is possible to create natural scales and also flageolette tones (achieving high pitches by overblowing). The find from the Istállóskö cave in Hungary is referred to as a flute . The most perfect paleolithic flute is the one recovered in 1953 in the Molodova 5 station ( Dnestr bank). Alexander Häusler describes possible ways of playing by comparing it with the horned creature from La Trois Ferres (cave painting: France). Flutes were used for hunting and fertility spells and for attracting animals.
    • Snail trumpets ( conch horns ): Snail shells were used for this.
  • Whirring devices are mostly flat, lanceolate-shaped instruments made of wood or bone, which are attached to a string and circle around a longitudinal axis. A humming noise is generated depending on the rotational speed. The recent Western woods Cree calls them "bull-roarer". In Australian they are called soul woods, Tschuringa or also "Womara". Finds: Roche de Birol cave near Lalinde, Dordogne, France (decorated pieces of reindeer antlers, embedded in red pigments if found, Magdalenian ); Vogelherd Cave in the Lone Valley; Stellmoor near Ahrensburg

Ceramic and metal musical instruments

Idiophones

The making of music in the Mesolithic Mesolithic is strongly influenced by the hunter-gatherer way of life. The use of clay as a material in the Neolithic Age has an impact on the construction and variety of instruments. The cultural life of the people is changing, as well as plastic representations become easier due to better malleability.

  • Clay rattles: The function of smaller rattle instruments is clearly to be seen as toys for children, while the larger ones are primarily intended to drive away demons for cult purposes. Regarding the bird-shaped rattles and rattles, it should be noted that the bird symbolism is to be understood as detachment from the earth, as a conception of the soul, transition into a world beyond and generally in connection with the idea of ​​freedom.
  • Clay bells: Bells are used for ritual healing and expulsion of spirits. The gong is also used to mark the time of the meal together.
  • Membranophone / clay drums: clay drums contribute to the vital enlivening of the tonal sound in the ceramic culture cycle. The skins are first stretched by tying and knotting or by attaching weights. The small number of finds referred to as clay drums is also due to the fact that many were not recognized as such. The drum of the funnel-shaped culture (Poland: Mrovino), referred to as cylindrical, and the clay drum from Brozany nad Ohrì in Bohemia have a series of perforated appendages under the edge to tie up and tighten the membrane. The urnfield ceramic drum from Inzersdorf-Getzersdorf in Austria was probably strung with the help of a tension ring that was looped around the foot and through which the tension cords were pulled.

Evidence of a ring-shaped drum frame comes from the Dorset culture. This Paleo-Eskimo culture of the Arctic is classified much earlier and mentioned from 500 BC.

Aerophones

  • Vessel flutes : The shape of the early ceramic flutes is related to models from the animal world and nature. One of the oldest clay vessel flutes comes from the early Neolithic from a site near Brunn am Gebirge in Lower Austria. It dates back to the 6th millennium BC. BC and belongs to the Starčevo culture, i.e. before the linear ceramic band. One specimen each is known from the Vinča culture and the Anzabegovo-Vršnik culture. Further hollow shapes in the shape of a bird have been found in Pilin, Hungary, and in Kosice. The stylized animal head of Tòzeg's flute, which is right-angled at the end, represents a horse's head in comparison with the equestrian representation on an urn from Tumulus 3 from the Ödenburger Burgstall. The vessel flute from the Hungarian Vörösmart is somewhat younger. Pilin, Tòzeg and Vörösmart date from between 1700 and 1400 BC. Chr.
  • Panpipes or syrings made of bone, boxwood, ceramics, bronze: from the early Copper Age (4th millennium BC) burial ground at Mariupol in southern Ukraine comes a panpipe or syrinx made of seven or eight differently long, carved bird tube bones. The fragment of the bronze syrinx from Sanzeno in Trentino gives an indication of the pagan rituals or pagans during the La Tène period from the 5th century BC. The art of situles is handed down to pan flutes in the course of processions, in musical competitions or playing together and also as a solo instrument for background music in a festive setting. In the Greek and Italian regions, Syringen is related to the pastoral profession. In an archaeological context, the pan flute is called a syrinx. The find from Sanzeno and the harp from Fritzens (Tyrol)mentioned belowprovide further evidence of the cultural unity of people north and south of the Alps.

Chordophones

An approximately 15,000 year old, difficult to interpret cave drawing in the Three Brothers Cave in France possibly shows a dancer playing the mouth bow . A corner harp made of deer antlers from Fritzens -Pirchboden comes from the La Tène period in Central Europe (470 BC to 15 AD) . There are Rhaetian characters on the neck. It ends in an artistically carved horse's head. In addition to accompanying dance (...), it may have served the epics of a "Rhaetian Homer" (...) as a means of transport. The similarities in the material culture (ceramics, architectural style, writing and metal craft) shape the term Fritzens-Sanzeno culture in East, North and South Tyrol.

literature

  • Nicholas J. Conard among others: Ice Age Art in the South German-Swiss Jura, Beginnings of Art . Stuttgart 2001.
  • Francesco d'Errico et al .: Archaeological evidence for the emergence of language, symbolism, and music - an alternative multidisciplinary perspective . In: Journal of World Prehistory 17, 2003, pp. 1-70.
  • Alexander Häusler: New Finds of Stone Age Musical Instruments in Eastern Europe. In: Acta Musicologica . Vol. 32 (Apr-Sep, 1960) pp. 151-155. JSTOR 931665 (as of November 6, 2008).
  • Ellen Hickmann: Western Europe. Stone Age / Bronze Age / Iron Age. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . (MGG) Kassel / Stuttgart 1997, pp. 942-956.
  • Ellen Hickmann, Alexander Häusler: Music archeology. In: MGG Online, November 2016
  • Trajanka Jovcevska: Globular flute. ED. Archeology. Cultural heritage protection office. 2007.
  • Drago Kunej, Ivan Turk: New Perspectives on the Beginnings of Music: Archeological and Musicological Analyzes of a Middle Paleolithic Bone “Flute”. In: The Origins of Music. Massachusetts 2000, pp. 235-268.
  • Iain Morley: The Evolutionary Origins and Archeology of Music. Darwin College Research Report, Cambridge University 2003
  • Beate Maria Pomberger: An early Neolithic vessel flute from Brunn am Gebirge. Archeology of Austria 20/2, 2009, 55–58.
  • Beate Maria Pomberger: Drumming in prehistory. The example of the ceramic drum from Inzersdorf ob der Traisen, Lower Austria. Archeology of Austria 22/2, 2011, 34–43.
  • Beate Maria Pomberger: Rediscovered sounds. Musical instruments and sound objects from the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman Empire in the area between the Salzach and the Danube Bend - frequency analyzes, sound level measurements, ranges. Dissertation University of Vienna 2014.
  • Otto Seewald: The lyrical representations of the East Alpine Hallstatt culture. In: Hellmut Federhofer (Hrsg.): Festschrift Alfred Orel for his 70th birthday. Vienna 1960, pp. 159–171.
  • Peter Stadler: The early Neolithic settlement of Brunn am Gebirge, Flur Wolfholz, 5650–5150 BC And the emergence of linear ceramics. Archeology of Austria 20/2, 2009, 48–54.
  • Winfried Schrammek: About the origins and beginnings of music. Leipzig 1957.
  • Wolfgang Sölder: The fragment of a pan flute from Sanzeno, Trentino. In: Claudia Sporer-Heis (Ed.): Tyrol in its old borders. Festschrift for Meinrad Pizzini for his 65th birthday. Innsbruck 2008, pp. 223-246.
  • Gerhard Tomedi: On prehistoric music in the Alttirol area and in the southern Alps. In: Kurt Drexel (Hrsg.): Music history of Tyrol: From the early modern times to the end of the 19th century. Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck 2004, pp. 11–37.
  • Franz Zagiba: Music History of Central Europe I. First part. In: Franz Zagiba (Hrsg.): Research on older music history. Publications of the Musicological Institute of the University of Vienna. Association of Austrian Scientific Societies, Vienna 1976, pp. 7–59, catalog p. 160 ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hansjürgen Müller-Beck, Nicholas J. Conard, Wolfgang Schürle (eds.): Ice Age Art in the South German-Swiss Jura. Beginnings of art. Stuttgart 2001.
  2. ↑ Nettl 2000, 463.
  3. ^ Nicholas J. Conard and others Ice Age Art in the South German-Swiss Jura. Beginnings of art. Stuttgart 2001.
  4. ↑ Conard et al. 2001, 88 ff. Catalog, 124 f.
  5. ↑ G. Albrecht, C.-S. Holdermann, T. Kerig, J. Lechterbech, J. Serangeli: "Flutes" made from bear bones - the earliest musical instruments? Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 28, 1998, pp. 1–19.
  6. ^ F. d'Errico et al .: Archaeological evidence for the emergence of language, symbolism, and music — an alternative multidisciplinary perspective. Journal of World Prehistory 17, 2003, pp. 1-70.
  7. ↑ Häusler 1960, 152.
  8. ↑ Zagiba 1976, 17th plate 2,3.
  9. ↑ Hickmann, 1997, 942. Fig. 6
  10. ↑ Zagiba, 1976, p. 20, plate 6.
  11. ↑ Pomberger 2011, 34.
  12. ^ Conard et al. 2001, catalog: 127.
  13. ^ Pomberger 2009, 55.
  14. ↑ Pomberger 2014, 44–51, 318–319, plate 1, photo plate 1.
  15. ↑ Stadler 2009, pp. 48–54.
  16. ↑ Luca 1998, pp. 70, 205, Fig. 39 / 5a-b.
  17. ↑ Jovcevska of 2007.
  18. ↑ Zagiba, 1976, p. 18.
  19. ↑ Sölder 2008, 226
  20. ↑ Bo Lawergren: The Origin of Musical Instruments and Sounds. In: Anthropos, Volume 83, Issue 1./3, 1988, pp. 31–45, here p. 36
  21. ↑ Tomedi 2004, 31 f.