Powerful, long and deep… three notes from the dawn of time have just been heard for the first time by a team of French scientists. Three notes, the lowest of which would be close to C and the other two, respectively, of a C sharp and a D (listen below). It is by ringing an 18,000-year-old conch, a 12-inch shell of the kind Charonia lampas sp. (humped newt) that the scientists led by Carole Fritz and Gilles Tosello, associated with the Traces Laboratory -UMR 5608 of the University of Toulouse-Le Mirail, achieved these results, published on February 10, 2021 in the journal Science Advances. The shell was discovered in 1931 at the entrance to the decorated cave of Marsoulas, in the middle Pyrenees, on the edge of Haute-Garonne and Ariège. “We have identified the use of the oldest conch in the world in a prehistoric context “, rejoices the prehistorian Carole Fritz from Toulouse where Science and the Future met her.
A millennial instrument forgotten for 80 years
To do this, Pascal Gaillard (CNRS), musicologist at the Cognition, Languages, Language, Ergonomics Laboratory (CLLE) in Toulouse and himself a former flutist, invited Jean-Michel Court, one of his horn player friends. [joueur de cor], to blow into the conch. This immediately revived this multi-millennial instrument, forgotten for 80 years in the collections of the Toulouse Natural History Museum.
The conch of Marsoulas (Haute-Garonne) and its 31 cm high. © Carole Fritz et al. 2021
Several other organizations collaborated on this project, including the Laboratory of Molecular and Structural Archeology (LAMS) in Paris and the Musée du Quai-Branly-Jacques Chirac.
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Thanks to everyone’s work, this is the first time that a wind musical instrument has been clearly associated with a prehistoric archaeological site. “We can prove that sound was undoubtedly produced in the Marsoulas cave 18,000 years ago “, assure Carole Fritz. Specialists were of course aware of the existence of some bone flutes dating from the Aurignacian (around 30,000 years old) discovered in Germany, as well as the discussed use of possible rhombs. [instrument à vent produisant un son par frottement de l’air ambiant], or even vague bone whistles. But no proof had yet been provided that a conch had been used as a musical instrument in Europe for the Magdalenian period. A shell whose distribution is often estimated to be limited to warm seas, “s‘actually extends to Oceania, New Zealand, Europe, India, Tibet, Japan, Indochina, New Guinea, and beyond“, explain the authors of the article. In Marsoulas, for example, the conch is native to the coasts located 200 kilometers away. “It’s about of a mollusk that we meet again in the Bay of Biscay and along the Basque and Asturian coasts of Spain.”
Remains of an arrangement of the conch to allow a cannula to pass. A mouthpiece. © Carole Fritz et al. 2021
Proof that this shell was intentionally remodeled to produce sound
“L’apex [la pointe de la conque] has been removed, and the outer lip fully retouched to regularize the edge. The conch has undergone an arrangement for the installation of a tip “, explains Carole Fritz. What the examinations at CNES have confirmed. “During a tomography scan, we discovered that the inside of the shell had been made. A hole had been dug in it, probably to introduce a cannula, a tube used as a mouthpiece to better direct the air to it. inside the shell to make it ring, continues Gilles Tosello. This is proof that this shell was intentionally remodeled to produce sound “.
The conch of Marsoulas (Charonia lampas sp.) And the traces with the thumb made with red ocher identified in its internal part. Footprints identical to those of the painted bison in the decorated cave presented in the background. © Carole Fritz et al. 2021
Even more than the instrument itself, it is the symbolic link attested between this shell and the cave paintings of the decorated cave of Marsoulas that surprised scientists. Discovered in 1897, Marsoulas, called “the cave with 500 figures”, indeed has about fifty meters of decorated wall. Among the animals that figure there, two imposing bison 2 meters long are painted and engraved, one of which is riddled with hundreds of dotted lines made with the thumb, in red ocher (read Sciences et Avenir n ° 848, 2017). Two dresses extremely rare in all Western cave art. However, analysis by tomography (CT) and X-ray fluorescence spectrometry of the conch showed that this shell housed in its internal part … identical traces. “The conch of Marsoulas has indeed traces similar to those of the bison in the decorated cave.“says Carole Fritz.”The decorations of the conch therefore have an unmistakable symbolic meaning, even religious in connection with the cavity.“, explains Gilles Tosello.
The Did Magdalenian hunters use the conch to call out from one valley to another, in this mountainous region of the Pyrenees? Did they use it in ceremonies? Did they use it inside the cavity in connection with the parietal works? “We don’t know. But for the first time we have a sound expression symbolically linked to cave art. And that is unique in the world! “, smiles Carole Fritz.
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