We can now hear the oldest wind instrument sound: 18,000 years old

The Marsoulas conch It is the oldest wind instrument of its kind. This large ornate seashell was discovered in the Marsoulas Cave, between Haute-Garonne and Ariège, in 1897.

According to carbon 14 dating of the cave, carried out on a piece of charcoal and a fragment of bear bone from the same archaeological level as the shell, it gave a date of around 18,000 years. And now we can hear what it sounded like.

symbolic object

The shell has been decorated with a red pigment (hematite), characteristic of the Marsoulas Cave, which indicates its status as a symbolic object. The tip of the shell is not accidentally broken, forming an opening 3.5 centimeters in diameter. Since the opening was irregular and covered by an organic coating, the researchers assume that it also carried a mouthpiece.

To find out what this instrument could sound like, researchers from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the Toulouse Museum, the Toulouse-Jean Jaurès University and the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques-Chirac hired a trumpeter who managed to do ring three sounds with it close to the notes C, C sharp and D. It you can listen below:

To date, flutes have only been discovered in earlier contexts of the European Upper Paleolithic and the conch shells found outside Europe are much more recent.

Here you have the 3D model of the shell to explore it at your leisure:

<p style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; margin: 5px; color: #4A4A4A;">
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The news

We can now hear the oldest wind instrument sound: 18,000 years old

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

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