Musical caves

Note 007

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It is said in an article written by one of the pioneers of prehistoric art studies: the Romanian Lya Dams, who ended up specializing in the rock art of the Spanish Levant.

The text in question, entitled "Palaeolithic lithophones: descriptions and comparisons" (published in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 4 (1), March 1985, pp. 31-46), points out that early humans may have come to use the stalactites, stalagmites and other limestone formations of the caves they inhabited as lithophones.

Stone musical instruments.

The researcher based her work on the articles (1965 and 1966) written, shortly before his death, by a famous French speleologist and archaeologist: the abbot André Glory. He identified potential sound-producing formations in the caves of Roucadour (Thémines), Cougnac (Gourdon), Pech-Merle (Cabrerets) and Les Fieux (Miers), all in the Lot department (France); in the Escoural cave (province of Evora, Portugal); and in the Nerja cave (province of Malaga, Spain).

The Frenchman points out:

As speleologists know, some stalactites vibrate and emit sounds when struck ... prehistoric man knew this effect. In the cave of Nerja, near Malaga ... the edges of the folded curtains were splintered in ancient times by alternating blows on both sides. We have experimented with the same and obtained deep sounds like a tom-tom [author's translation].

Both Glory first and Dams later identified percussive signals in the rock and obtained accurate sounds when they struck those points. In addition, they found particular markings (dots), symbols (combinations of lines) and ornamentations (the image of a cervid) on those pieces, which seemed to "identify" the "instruments" and associate them with decorated spaces and remains of ritual practices.

On some stalactites, repeated markings were found at different heights. The prehistoric performers were probably seeking to produce different notes.

In his article, Dams provides brief scores with the sounds of some of these supposed lithophones.

Whether the hypothesis of the existence of these first idiophones is valid or not, we will never know. But it is tempting to imagine those initial sounds, in those environments, by a species that was just beginning its path in the world.

This post belongs to a compilation that has been published by El Zorro de Abajo Editora. That publication can be accessed thorugh the section "Articles" at Instrumentarium.

About the post

Text: Edgardo Civallero.

Publication date: 06.11.2023.

Picture: Cave Art. In National Geographic [link].