People made music as early as the Paleolithic around 18,000 years ago. Researchers have now examined a wind instrument made from the shell of a sea snail, which is believed to be the oldest of its kind. The artifact was discovered 90 years ago in the cave of Marsoulas in France. But only modern investigation techniques revealed that the snail shell was worked on by humans and apparently served as a musical instrument. A musician and expert in wind instruments made the instrument sound again.
Music has been part of the culture of human societies since ancient times. Anthropologists assume that the sounds of flutes, drums and singing played an important role, especially at festivals and rituals. At various archaeological sites, for example, flutes and pipes made of bones testify to the fact that people built instruments as early as the Paleolithic.
Drinking horn or instrument?
Researchers working with Carole Fritz from the Université de Toulouse in France now describe an extraordinary find. It is a shell of the sea snail Charonia lampas, which was discovered 90 years ago in the Marsoulas Cave in the foothills of the French Pyrenees. The discoverers of the artifact at the time found no traces of human processing and took the snail shell, which is over 30 centimeters long, for a drinking vessel. However, with new examination methods, including a CT scan and a three-dimensional computer model, Fritz and colleagues were able to prove that the object was indeed worked on by humans and was not a drinking vessel, but a musical instrument – possibly the oldest of its kind.
“Our observations suggest that significant changes have been made to the housing to allow it to be blown,” the researchers report. The top of the case has broken off and forms an opening 3.5 cm in diameter. Since this is the hardest part of the shell, the breakage is clearly not accidental from the researchers’ point of view. A look inside the object with the help of computed tomography showed that the first inner windings were also pierced – and thus possibly offered space for a mouthpiece pushed in. This is also indicated by brownish remains of an organic material that may have served as an adhesive. “We could imagine that a hollow bird bone was used as a mouthpiece,” write Fritz and colleagues.
The analyzes also revealed remnants of painting with a red pigment. Similar paintings can also be found on the walls of the Marsoulas Cave. “Since the remnants of the colors are very faint, it was not possible to compare their composition with that of the paintings in the cave,” the researchers write. But they discovered other special features: “In addition to these colored elements, very fine engravings are visible under the thin layer of red pigment on the inside of the bowl,” they report. These decorations indicate that the snail horn had a status as a ritual object.
Sounds from the Paleolithic
To confirm the hypothesis that the case was used to produce sound, the scientists consulted a wind instrument expert. In fact, he succeeded in producing three melodious notes on the instrument. To do this, he put the opening on his lips and blew into it like a trumpet or trumpet. With his lip tension he was able to vary the pitch so that the notes C, C sharp and D were created. However, the musician confirmed the researchers’ assumption that a mouthpiece was originally used: otherwise the sharp edges of the lime bowl would have injured the musician’s lips.
Constructions made of shells with a mouthpiece are already known from recent finds. “All over the world, clam shells have served as musical instruments, call or signaling devices and, depending on the culture, as sacred or magical objects,” the authors write. The oldest specimens from the Mediterranean region to date come from ancient Greece. Earlier instrument finds in Europe so far mainly comprised bony flutes. The sea snail horn described here is not only probably the oldest wind instrument of its kind. It also shows that there was apparently an exchange between the French Pyrenees and the Atlantic coast more than 200 kilometers away, where Charonia lampas occurs. “As far as we know, the Marsoulas shell is unique in the prehistoric context, not just in France, but in all of Paleolithic Europe and perhaps even worldwide,” the researchers say.
Source: Carole Fritz (Université de Toulouse, France) et al., Science Advances, doi: 10.1126 / sciadv.abe9510