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What did Palaeolithic pop sound like? Ask the team recreating long-forgotten instruments and the soundscapes they were played in

BONE flutes are the oldest musical instruments discovered so far. The remains of several have been found in European caves also containing Palaeolithic paintings. They date from between 40,000 and 15,000 years ago, a time of enormous creativity, when humans first started to make art and when ritual burials suggest the beginnings of religion or spirituality. As the first hard evidence of human musicality they are fascinating. However, interpreting them has often proved contentious.

Take one of the oldest, the Divje Babe flute. It was found in what is now Slovenia among the remains of Neanderthals, and some believe it was made and used by them. If Neanderthals were musical, they were more similar to us than we might imagine, but that鈥檚 not the only controversy surrounding this find. Some argue the flute is simply a chewed animal bone 鈥� that the holes were made by a bear or other carnivore gnawing on it.

There is another way of looking at it, though; regardless of who or what created this artefact, it may still have been used as a flute. One way to find out would be to recreate it and then try to play it. This is the starting point for archaeoacoustics. The discipline began around 40 years ago with the idea of making replicas of ancient musical instruments. Today, developments in technology mean that we can also digitally reconstruct the visual and sonic environments in which these instruments were played. That鈥檚 what I do, and I am collaborating with researchers across Europe on an ambitious project to explore the continent鈥檚 musical and sound heritage.

(Image: Amanda Moulson/Alamy)

Prehistoric rockers

(EMAP) aims to track the development of the world鈥檚 oldest known musical tradition from its origins in the Palaeolithic right up until Roman times. A quintessentially cultural activity, music created a network of relationships among peoples long before the continent became known as Europe, at a time when low water levels left Britain connected to the mainland, and Europe was a hotbed of cultural innovation.

To explore this prehistory, we have been recreating long-forgotten instruments and the environments in which they were played, and building a sort of musical time machine to transport today鈥檚 listeners back into the past. I have even had a chance to play a replica of the Divje Babe flute and, whatever its origins, I can confirm that it sounds convincingly musical.

EMAP, like archaeoacoustics, starts with reconstructions of ancient musical instruments. This is an experimental process 鈥� as much a science as an art 鈥� drawing on a broad range of techniques. The first step is to study archaeological remains. Occasionally, these are near-complete instruments, but more often they consist of fragments that have been dug up in various states of deterioration. These may be laser scanned or X-rayed to investigate them more closely. Metals can be analysed for their composition, and with DNA tests we can work out the species of plant or animal from which organic materials originate. Radiocarbon dating can then tell us how old an object is.

Next comes iconography. Images painted onto ancient ceramic pots, carved into stone reliefs, and the like, can suggest what an instrument might have looked like when whole, how it was held and played, and what kind of culture surrounded it.

The archaeological context provides more clues. Things like where and how an object was deposited, and what other artefacts were found around it, help fit it into the jigsaw of past lives. In a few cases there are even ancient texts referring to instruments 鈥� although some should be taken with a pinch of salt as victors have been known to denigrate the musical prowess of the vanquished.

Ethnographic comparison is another weapon in the music archaeologist鈥檚 armoury. Insights into the form and function of an ancient instrument may come from studying a related musical culture, such as that of Siberian shamans or Celtic folk tradition. Music crosses cultural boundaries. Genetic studies are providing an increasingly detailed picture of human migrations across the globe and they also help us trace the spread of musical instruments and traditions. For example, we are using DNA analysis showing the spread of people across Europe over a period of two millennia to help us track the adoption and adaptation of bagpipes from Italy around 3000 years ago. A similar pattern can be seen with harps and brass instruments.

All this information feeds into our attempts to physically reconstruct an instrument and work out how it was played. We would also like to know what sort of music might have been played on it. Trying to establish a tuning system for an instrument or musical tradition is a key part of the reconstruction process.

Today, in the West, we use a system called , which means that the ratio of frequencies between each of the 12 semitones in an octave is identical. Introduced in the 17th century, it allows musicians to change keys, and is the bedrock of our harmonic system. However, all the notes are a little out of tune in comparison with the natural system, known as 鈥渏ust intonation鈥�. Here the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of whole numbers such as 2:1, 3:1, 3:2 and this would have been common in the past.

Other systems exist too, and sometimes there is documentary evidence recording exactly how an instrument was tuned. For wind instruments we can identify tunings and scales from the positions of finger holes.

Of course, we can never recreate the music of the past with total certainty. Ancient musical cultures were overwhelmingly oral or aural traditions. Even in Roman and Greek times, there are few examples of music notation as we know it. This only really took off with the development of church music in Medieval Europe. But we can use all the evidence to compose interpretations of ancient music, and by playing these melodies on reconstructed instruments in appropriate settings we can recreate sounds from the past.

In fact, the lack of past musical scores is not the fundamental problem it appears to be. Ethnographic studies suggest that in ancient cultures the overall sound effect may often have been more important than individual note choices. Some tribal societies still have no word for music, the concept being tied up with dance, celebration, cult or culture. And, although the Western conception of music focuses on notes, chords and rhythms, we instinctively understand the importance of context. A piece of music played on a flute in the front room of a house will sound completely different if played in a church or concert hall. The meaning, interpretation and feel of that music will be radically changed not just by the acoustics of these spaces but also by the different implications of home, religion or a professional performance.

鈥淭he lack of musical scores is not the fundamental problem it appears to be鈥�

This is where I come in. My role within EMAP is to place recordings of ancient instruments into an acoustic and physical or visual context that makes them as authentic as possible. Sometimes this means taking the musicians and their instruments to an archaeological site and recording them there. Where this is not possible a more high-tech approach is required. Today, using digital audio modelling programs, architects can design the acoustics of a space before building it. We use the same software to reconstruct the sonic properties of ruined ancient spaces, from burial chambers to Roman amphitheatres. These acoustics can then be digitally applied to music made on an ancient instrument and recorded in a studio or an anechoic chamber 鈥� a specially treated room with no acoustic character of its own. Finally, we add the visual environment with the help of sophisticated computer generated graphics if necessary.

Combining these kinds of visual and audio reconstructions allows us to travel back in time to experience what our ancestors heard, saw and felt when they played their music. Our goal at EMAP is to create a museum exhibition that opens this experience to anyone. As well as information about ancient instruments, music and cultures, it will include concerts and workshops and, as its centrepiece, a 3-metre high Soundgate (see 鈥�The musical time machine鈥�).

The EMAP exhibition should be completed in 2016, after which it will travel to venues in several European countries. Having experienced some of these ancient soundscapes, I have no doubt visitors will be moved by the sonic world of our distant ancestors. Music has a special power to transport us. But it is also fitting that the process of bringing aural antiquity to life is so technical. Music has always been a high-tech activity. Indeed, the history of music really is the history of technology, whether we are talking about mathematics and tuning systems or different means of production and mechanical development. It seems that from far back in time, the very latest technological developments have been used for making musical instruments, as much as for providing food or fighting wars. And that, surely, says something about how important music is to our existence.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淧ast Notes鈥�