Archaeologists have found seven flutes made of perforated bird bones at the Natufian site of Eynan-Mallaha in northern Israel. These instruments were intentionally manufactured more than 12,000 years ago to produce a range of sounds similar to raptor calls and whose purposes could be at the crossroads of communication, attracting hunting prey and music-making.
The Natufian culture is an archaeological culture in the Levant dating to around 15,000-11,700 years ago.
It marks the transition from hunter-gatherer Paleolithic societies into fully-fledged agricultural economies of the Neolithic.
“The Natufians were the first hunter-gatherers in the Levant to adopt a sedentary lifestyle, a dramatic economic and societal change associated with growing social complexity as reflected in various aspects of their material culture,” said Dr. Laurent Davin, a researcher with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and CNRS, and colleagues.
In their study, they examined avifauna remains from the Natufian settlement of Eynan-Mallaha in the Hula Lake Basin of the Upper Jordan Valley, Israel.
They identified one complete and six fragments of worked bone as sound-making instruments of a kind never identified before in the wider Paleolithic record.
“The aerophones from Eynan-Mallaha are all made of wing long-bones (one humerus, five ulnae, one radius) of the Eurasian teal (Anas crecca) and the Eurasian coot (Fulica atra),” they said.
“In the three cases where the epiphysis is still present, it has also been perforated to form the mouthpiece or the distal end of the object.”
“To these finger-holes are added markings on three bones, either notches or a series of small parallel incisions located near the finger-holes, which are potentially linked to the placements of the fingers on the instrument.”
“All the worked areas show contact-wear traces indicating that all instruments have been used.”
“When looking at the state of preservation, most of the fractures are…
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