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nosnevenaes t1_je3cli0 wrote

Imagine the impact this instrument would make on people before recorded music was a thing.

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cboel t1_je3ecim wrote

It was the equivalent of the newest cellphone of its day. Music in the form of singing, chanting, whistling, etc. had been around long before that instrument was made and it was likely a progressive improvement over something like a large grass or reed stalk.

We don't tend to find those types of things being preserved though in archaeology sites. We know they had to exist due to seeing technologically less advanced peoples in more modern ages being documented making and use them.

A standard mouth whistle that you see referees use at sports events, for example, likely has origins even further back.

https://youtu.be/JZysi-6xqjE

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[deleted] t1_je56b6s wrote

[removed]

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nosnevenaes t1_je56jgb wrote

They did not have buns back then.

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Kwando-D-Hornblower t1_je5iidf wrote

Yes they did. Prove me wrong.

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nosnevenaes t1_je5mfbb wrote

Well. Buns require leavening yes?

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Whoretron8000 t1_je6159v wrote

Idk, we just found evidence of cooking fish 780,000 years ago, we are slowly learning more as we go and I wouldn't be surprised if our estimates on manipulating yeasts to make fluffy grain paste are off by a few-tens of thousand years.

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nosnevenaes t1_je63sw7 wrote

Catching fish is easier to figure out than how to make dough rise.

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Whoretron8000 t1_je64j0q wrote

Sure, I don't think catching fish and cooking it is so much the surprise, but the discrepancy between what we previously knew and what we know now in regards to what evidence suggests is what's surprising... How wrong we could potentially be until we learn more.

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nosnevenaes t1_je65ar8 wrote

This is true. Yes. But if you make bread one of the first thoughts that comes to mind while you are proofing dough is how long did it did it take mf'ers to figure this out?

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Whoretron8000 t1_je6f55o wrote

For some reason I instantly pictured a chronological display of all the different breads made with different grains, yeasts, proof times etc. In a museum.

Is it possible a neanderthal just found some extra crushed grain sitting in some water that got mashed by the weight or something.. and they cooked it and tried to recreate it? Was it methodical? Accident? How many got sick trying different iterations. Oooh possibilities.

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nosnevenaes t1_je6hp0v wrote

ok yeah making the bread is not the hard part. it is getting an agent into the bread to make it rise, such as yeast, or sourdough, etc.

that is the innovation which would have taken a long ass time to come up with.

so they might have had hot cross crackers, hardtac, or whatever - i mean even the last supper - what did jesus and the crew eat? unleavened bread.

the romans didnt have it as far as i know.

i think the bread we eat today (which i love) is a relatively new thing.

i am not dragging chatGPT into this!

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Albyross t1_je5q965 wrote

When you said impact, at first I thought you meant the force a person would feel from being bludgeoned on the head by it.

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2poxxer t1_jecgcq5 wrote

So, youre sitting on a small stream bank fluting for the fish ans some damn Cromag jumps up to take yo shit. Nah, blast em with this whistling club and keep yo shit. If anyone hasnt watched it yet, the film Iceman seems to capture how things likely were for a long time.

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hillo538 t1_je3ii4u wrote

Damn, the oldest instrument wasn’t even from the standard human you see today

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blackadder1620 t1_je3nvnn wrote

oldest found. good chance we did the same things if not a little more extra. although their cave paintings are pretty damn cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux

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jagnew78 t1_je4tgr1 wrote

if you see the complexity of that it's hard not to imagine there are older, even more simple versions of this from before hand. Someone probable started with a hollow bone after sucking the marrow out after a meal and was just probably fooling around with it and blew into it for fun and it made a cool sound.

Then who knows how long... generations later someone, somewhere down the road realized if you covered your hand over one end you could make it change sound and then at some point, generations more later someone figured out you could drill holes into it and cover or uncover them and create even more sound variations.

this is an evolution of an instrument refined over generations.

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LiesInRuins t1_je4z2pf wrote

It could have even happened in the same weekend. One particularly curious cave monkey with an inventive mind could’ve conjured this up in a day and then get beaten to death for it and the next cave monkey could’ve showed it to some friends.

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leeuwerik t1_je66k5f wrote

We hunted them down. Like we wil be hunted down by our replacements.

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hillo538 t1_je66y3b wrote

We should probably bring them back with cloning instead, and not just for sideshow attractions: iirc Neanderthals would be able to live in the modern day without much trouble

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Fulminero t1_je4cta8 wrote

There is something strangely melancholic about this. I can't help but imagine this person playing in front of a fire, their friends and loved ones sitting, eating and speaking their alien tongue.

They would never have imagined their instrument would survive them so long, a 60000 years old legacy.

Rest well, music man.

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outerlabia t1_je4kqil wrote

Imagine if 60k years from now someone found a kazoo in some mud and thought that was something we considered highly sophisticated lol

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sandyposs t1_je72u0p wrote

60000 years ago and everyone's having a party around the campfire, this dude whips out the flute and everyone groans inwardly Oh, not this again.

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chrispybobispy t1_je3llg6 wrote

This is my special Neanderthal flute it was passed down 60,000 years to me by my great great great ^500 grandfather who was a caveman.

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theKtrain t1_je3y3se wrote

Show me the gold, I wanna know where the gold at

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LineChef t1_je4dxa1 wrote

It could be a shaman, who got a’hold of the wrong medicine, and told him to get in the tree and play a caveman…

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Stubborncomrade t1_je5dhin wrote

Aschtually if every generation reproduce after 30 years then that’s only be 15000 years. (30*500). So unless your grand parents reproduced at age 120, you’d need at least 2000 generations

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chrispybobispy t1_je5h0tz wrote

Ha! I was doing the quick n dirty math in my head last night, then decided that was pedantic and went with 500. Good work stubborncomrade

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devo_inc t1_je52e1a wrote

Fascinating. For insurance purposes, I would insure this for no less than....

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EffectiveSalamander t1_je3fzon wrote

I'm curious what it would have sounded like.

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Aye_Eye_Captain t1_je4vwiu wrote

The idea that Neanderthals were kind of slow and dim-witted is completely inaccurate. Recent archaeological research has revealed that they were quite advanced and perhaps as intelligent as our modern human ancestors

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Lurker_IV t1_je5m9fj wrote

They had sewing needles so they had tailored clothing. And musical instruments so they had music. They had bigger brains than us so they were probably smarter. They must have had art of some kinds.

More human than human us back then probably. Shame they aren't around anymore.

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Jiktten t1_je6tewi wrote

>More human than human us back then

What makes you say that? IIRC there is no reason to suppose that early homo sapiens were any less mentally or linguistically sophisticated than we are now.

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IAm_NotACrook t1_je6wpk7 wrote

> They had bigger brains than us so they were probably smarter.

I don’t know if that tracks. Like dolphins have bigger brains than us but I don’t think a dolphin is as smart as us, despite being extremely intelligent in their own right.

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GeorgeOlduvai t1_je7pias wrote

It does not track. Your example is excellent; dolphins have bigger brains than humans but they use most of that for echolocation. Neanderthals had smaller frontal lobes and larger occipital portions.

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dressageishard t1_je85k4d wrote

Cro-Magnon man had a larger brain than modern humans. Who knows, maybe Neanderthals did, too?

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repeatwad t1_je7jh46 wrote

They hunted the hibernating cave bears, helped them through the winters.

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_who_is_they_ t1_je493zw wrote

Legend has it, if you play it right the bear will be summoned.

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-reddug- t1_je4kvvi wrote

What do you want to be? A musician? Gotta kill a cave bear first!

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o-ater t1_je4setz wrote

How is it at warding off Leprechaun spells?

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groggyMPLS t1_je5l7jp wrote

”Musical experiments confirmed findings of archaeological research that the size and the position of the holes cannot be accidental – they were made with the intention of musical expression.”

I hate statements like this. Of course it could have been accidental. Insanely unlikely, but why sound stupid by saying there’s zero chance some cave man made four holes in a bone that just happened to be on the right scale for making musical notes.

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GeorgeOlduvai t1_je7pxft wrote

It is unlikely to the point where it can be considered a non-zero chance happening. In other words, it's more likely for it to have been found by a Neanderthal with the holes already in it than to have had the holes accidentally placed correctly to function as an instrument.

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Flounder4life t1_je59dgu wrote

Who was the fist cave guy that was like, toot toot…Hey check this out!

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ICPosse8 t1_je81gbd wrote

So we made flutes before drums?

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icelandichorsey t1_je3i8cd wrote

Even this I wouldn't be able to make good music from 😂

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milk4all t1_je566de wrote

Rugged, shirtless, hairy man, upon seeing a wild, curvaceous female: “Baby, im gonna play you like a flute”

Curvaceous Female: “grrr?”

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mmuffley t1_je80p7r wrote

Thick as a brick.🎶

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_Maxolotl t1_jea36ic wrote

Here's a second fact that I always tell people to add some perspective about this flute:

I live in Brooklyn, New York. Brooklyn is part of Long Island. Long Island is a glacial moraine, formed after the last major glacial retreat.

That flute is older than Long Island. And the short version of my factoid is "Music is older than Long Island".

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cloudbearry t1_jebgjpe wrote

Now I kind of want my bones to be turned into flutes after I die.

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LupusDeusMagnus t1_je5kgis wrote

Allegedly. There’s some discussion on whether it’s actually a flute.

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_austinm t1_je7mwz2 wrote

What else would it be?

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LupusDeusMagnus t1_je7taax wrote

I’m not an archaeologist but it’s a fragment of perforated bone. Could’ve been merely decorative for what matters. Just pointing out that there isn’t an unanimous agreement of what it is, and an instrument that old would require a complete reevaluation of out understanding of Neanderthal cognitive capabilities.

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P33J t1_je5x3cs wrote

That’s the most metal flute in history

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