About 18,000 years ago, the Magdalenian inhabitants of the Marsoulas Cave turned into what is now France, a shell of the predatory sea snail Charonia lampas in a wind instrument. A team of researchers in France has now released a recording of what the instrument would have sounded like.
Reconstruction of the seashell horn being played. In the background, a red-dotted buffalo graces the walls of Marsoulas Cave; similar motifs adorn the instrument. Image credit: Gilles Tosello.
The ancient sea conch horn was discovered in 1931 at the entrance to the Marsoulas cave, located in the foothills of the French Pyrenees.
Marsoulas was the first decorated cave to be discovered in this region in 1897 and has been studied from the late 1800s to the present day.
Although it was qualified as an ‘exceptional discovery’, it was described by archaeologists as without traces of human intervention and interpreted as a ‘loving cup’.
Marine shell of Charonia lampas from Marsoulas Cave, France: (A) side view; (B) front view and naming of the anatomical regions; (C) remnants of red pigment preserved on the columella; (D) tracing of red dots and lines visible in the enhanced photo; very similar red dots, produced with the fingertips, are present on the walls of the cave; (E) set of red dots forming a bison silhouette (length – 1.1 m); (F) Geometric sign formed by a double line of dots. Image credit: Fritz et al., doi: 10.1126 / sciadv.abe9510.
But after looking at the scale with advanced imaging techniques, Dr. Carole Fritz of the Université de Toulouse and colleagues provide numerous indications of human adaptations of it, making it a possible musical instrument.
They determined that the Magdalenian hunter-gatherers had carefully adjusted the shell to install a mouthpiece.
The ancient people also removed the outer edges of the bowl’s labrum, the flared rim that extends outward from the main opening of the bowl, and decorated the exterior of the bowl with ocher-red pigment designs to match the style of wall art in the Marsoulas cave.
“It is one of the very rare examples, if not the only one for the Paleolithic period, of a musical instrument crafted from a large shell, and the first shell of this use to be discovered so far,” said the scientists.
The Charonia, wind instrument: (A) Sagittal cross-section of the 3D model of the shell that allows to visualize the drilled hole at the sixth spire (after opening the top), probably to create a tube introduce to facilitate mounting of a mouthpiece; (B) detail of the circular perforation drilled from the top; the stripes on the edge are due to a slipping tool; (C) top view of the 3D model with the perforation; (D) 3D cross-section at the level of the seventh spire; (E) Marsoulas’ shell in its Magdalenian context (hypothetical restitution); (F) Southeast Asian shell, the mouth of which is covered with a black coating, intended to protect the lips of the blazer; (G and H) shell from Syria and detail of its broken mouth, close to that of Marsoulas; (I and J) shell from New Zealand and the mouthpiece is made of a decorated bone tube. Image credit: Fritz et al., doi: 10.1126 / sciadv.abe9510.
Using photogrammetry techniques to mark outward changes that cannot be easily seen with the naked eye, they painstakingly characterized the traces of human intervention.
They saw the fingerprint-shaped faded ocher markings, impact points along the modified labrum, and signs that the top of the shell had been carefully and deliberately removed to create a second opening.
The authors also noted traces of a brown organic substance, likely a resin or wax, around the apex opening that may have been used as an adhesive to attach a mouthpiece.
They then used CT scans to visualize the inside of the shell, finding that two additional holes had been broken away in the spiral layers immediately below the top of the shell, likely to accommodate the long tube extension of the mouthpiece.
The team then enlisted the help of a musicologist specializing in wind instruments, who could reproduce the sound of the horn in three different tones that almost corresponded to the notes of C, D, and C # in modern musical nomenclature.
“We already know that prehistoric humans transformed many shells into wearable ornaments and thus attributed substantial bodily symbolism to them,” said the researchers.
“This seashell horn, with its unique sonority, both deep and strong with a lasting reverberation, sheds light on a musical dimension hitherto unknown in the context of Upper Paleolithic societies.”
The team’s paper was published in the journal Science Advances
C. Fritz et al2021. First record of the sound produced by the oldest upper Paleolithic sea conch horn. Science Advances 7 (7): eabe9510; doi: 10.1126 / sciadv.abe9510
This article is based on press releases from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and CNRS.