Bone aerophones from Eynan-Mallaha (Israel) indicate imitation of raptor calls by the last hunter-gatherers in the Levant

Abstract

Direct evidence for Palaeolithic sound-making instruments is relatively rare, with only a few examples recorded from Upper Palaeolithic contexts, particularly in European cultures. However, theoretical considerations suggest that such artefacts have existed elsewhere in the world. Nevertheless, evidence for sound production is tenuous in the prehistoric archaeological record of the Levant, the study of music and its evolution being sparsely explored. Here we report new evidence for Palaeolithic sound-making instruments from the Levant with the discovery of seven aerophones made of perforated bird bones in the Final Natufian site of Eynan-Mallaha, Northern Israel. Through technological, use-wear, taphonomic, experimental and acoustical analyses, we demonstrate that these objects 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. Although similar aerophones are documented in later archaeological cultures, such artificial bird sounds were yet to be reported from Palaeolithic context. Therefore, the discovery from Eynan-Mallaha contributes new evidence for a distinctive sound-making instrument in the Palaeolithic. Through a combined multidisciplinary approach, our study provides important new data regarding the antiquity and development of the variety of sound-making instruments in the Palaeolithic at large and particularly at the dawn of the Neolithic in the Levant.

Plant-based red colouration of shell beads 15,000 years ago in Kebara Cave, Mount Carmel (Israel)

“…Future studies of experimental manufacture of pigments from various Rubiaceae species coupled with invasive analytical methods on the archaeological beads and tools from Kebara could help identify the actual plant species used by the Natufians and its chaîne opératoire. In any case, it seems more extended and more complex than the chaîne opératoire of mineral pigments, such as that of ochre widely used by the Natufians [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Therefore, one might ask why they manufactured and used organic red dyes if they already used mineral red pigments?…”

“…Many of these were recognised in the Natufian archaeological culture (15,000-11,650 cal BP), which marks, in the Levant, the transition from huntergatherer Palaeolithic societies into fully-fledged agricultural economies of the Neolithic [13]. The Natufians were the first hunter-gatherers to adopt a sedentary lifestyle, a dramatic economic and societal change associated with growing social complexity [14] as reflected also in various aspects of their material culture involving red ochre: burials where bodies were wrapped in textiles coloured with ochre [15,16] or bones that were decorated once the body was decomposed as in Azraq 18 [17]; artistic manifestations in the form of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines or decorated objects with incised geometric patterns decorated with ochre [18][19][20]; personal adornments with thousands of shell, bone and tooth beads ochre coloured [21][22][23]; bone aerophones coloured with ochre [24] and durable stone-built structures whose lime coating is ochre red [20].…”