Possible Prehistoric Musical InstrumentsMusic is a great passion of mine so I have wondered for a lo

Possible Prehistoric Musical Instruments

Music is a great passion of mine so I have wondered for a long time if our earliest prehistoric ancesters in Europe were capable of creating music and how? I’ve done some research on this subject, have also visited several prehistoric instruments stored at an archeological depot and I own several replicas based on archeological finds. Here is a list of possible prehistoric instruments.

Unfortunately we will never know what melodies or rhythms our ancestors played on their musical instruments. We can only try to reproduce these instruments and experience/listen to the sounds that they could have produced. We do know that creating music wasn’t solely an activity practiced by us, Homo Sapiens. In the Divje babe cave, a flute was found made from the left thighbone of a young cave bear and it has been dated to around 60,000 years old. This was before modern humans settled themselves in Europe so this flute must have been created and played by the Neanderthals.

Wind instruments:
-Transverse flutes
-Vertical flutes
-Oblique flutes
-Trumpet-like instruments made from shells or gourds
-Didgeridoo
-Panflute
-Whistles
-Ocarinas

Instruments made with skins
-Handdrum
-Pottery drum
-Frame drum
-Cylinder drum
-Friction drum

Instruments you can shake/rub or struck
-Rattles
-Rasps
-Bells
-Bullroarer
-Click sticks
-Xylophone
-Ung-Klung

Instruments with strings
-Mouth harp
-Resonator bow
-Lute/lyre
-Earth bow

I see a lot of people, especially those interested in old Nordic music such as Danheim/Wardruna etc.. loving the Tagelharpa. The act of using a bow to drag it over strings in order to produce a sound, such as the tagelharpa, is actually quite a recent invention. The bow was invented around the 16th century. Tagelharpas described in the eddas were actually not played with a bow but as a lyre.

I hope this post has given some of you more of an insight in the types of instruments our paleolithic ancestors could have played. Perhaps this serves as inspiration to recreate these instruments and try them out, it’s a lot of fun.

Here are images of:
Neanderthal bone flute 60,000 years old,
A bullroarer,
Possible cone shell instrument found in the Marsoulas cave, France,
A paleolithic woman playing the sea shell instrument art by Gilles Tosello,
Neanderthals preparing for the hunt, one plays the flute, artist currently unknown for now,