The flutes from the Geißenklösterle cave
near Blaubeuren, Alb-Donau-Kreis, Germany
In rare cases musical instruments were conservated in stoneage sites. Fragments of flutes and flutes, of known age and use, can be traced from southwestern France to eastern Europe. So far the pierced and kerfed birdbones from the excavations of J. Hahn and earlier E. Wagner in the Geißenklösterle are the only ones from Germany. Until now, two flutes were reconstructed from the different bonefragments. At first the involved scientists had to aprove the human nature of the carvings, as cavebears and hyena made similar fragments while chewing bones. In a second advance the playability of the flutes had to be proofen. Because of these experiments, the fragments from the Geißenklösterle are Europe's or even the worlds oldest proofen musical instruments.
In archeological terms, they belong to the Aurignacien, the oldest epoch, linked to the appearance of anatomic modern men in Europe (Homo sapiens sapiens - as we call ourselves so humbly). In absolute figures the flutes are about 35'000 years old.
To produce the flutes iceage people used the forwingbones of different bigsized birds. At the Geißenklösterle they used bones of swans. For my replicas (ruler is 5 cm), for which I could rely on experiences of several others, I could use one of the rare swanbones. The second, a little smaller one, is made from a turkeybone. Turkey as an american species, of course was not used in iceage europe. At first I had to cook the bones and scrape the remaining flesh of. For this scraping and all the cutting and carving to come I used flintblades.
The two joints were cut away with a ringshaped cerf, then I could blow out the marrow. The last bits were cleaned out with a little branch, whose end I had chewn to form a small brush.
One of the major advantages in using birdbones, seems to be that they are almost comletely empty. There is no spongy structure in them unlike in most mammalian bones. Next step was to carve the holes for the fingers and to polish with cattail leaves. A high gloss could be achieved with a little human fat from my hair.