The evolution of music

This chapter explores how the representation of music has developed within human cultures. It begins by discussing the soundscapes of prehistoric landscapes, in order to better understand the acoustic ecologies of the past. This is followed by investigating the role of music within societies, addressing how music interacts with work, ritual, and trance. Discussion of lithophones, drums, and dancing is followed by addressing bone pipes, the earliest musical instrument archaeologists found, exploring music as technology for socialization and community. Bronze horns in Europe such as the Carnyx and Greek and Roman music provide evidence of complex technological processes applied to music making, showing an increasing sophistication in the use of technology to create sonic meanings. The paper concludes that the representation of meaning in sound through an aural symbolic language, combines semiotics and embodied knowledge in complex networks of understanding that play a significant role in human cultures.

The spatio-temporal dynamics of resources in ‘wild’ prehistoric landscapes

Based on archaeological and ethnoarchaeological data, this paper discusses the spatio-temporal dynamics of the resources in wild prehistoric landscapes, i.e. landscapes not subjected to techniques related to modern mono-cultural agriculture but potentially managed in other ways. The prevailing assumption in the archaeological environments engaged in modelling of Stone Age settlement positions is, that the resources in such landscapes are rather stable and evenly distributed. Such a concept was, however, abandoned in landscape ecology in the mid-1990s because it did not match the observed environmental reality, and replaced with much more mathematically complex models accepting that the different species (plants as well as animals) tend to appear in highly dynamic patches. Updating both the archaeological debate and research initiatives related to modelling of Stone Age habitation areas is therefore long overdue. A central point in this respect is whether the dynamic spatio-temporal behaviour of the resources in these landscapes is so complex that its reconstruction in specific micro-areas, and thereby a precise modelling of potential Stone Age settlement areas, is impossible. The fact, that human cultural groups opposite animal and plant societies often can be observed to behave different in similar environmental situations due to that they have developed different strategies and traditions, does not leave much hope.

Early Mesolithic activities at ancient Lake Duvensee, northern Germany

The ancient lake Duvensee in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, is one of the prime locations in northern Europe for early Holocene research. Archaeological sites on the former lakeshore provide vivid illustrations of early Mesolithic life, with bark mats and other organic finds preserved, including evidence for the extensive use of hazelnuts. Although the area has been the subject of research for almost 100 years, a coherent summary of these discoveries has not yet been written. Here we review past research at Duvensee, and give some prospects for further research. We show that the Duvensee sites varied in their structure and chronology. While only a limited number of sites can be connected to hazelnut exploitation, some of them show signs of hafting and retooling and other domestic activities. At a few sites, specific hearths were excavated which can be connected with hazelnut roasting and other subsistence activities. Finally, we show that while most earlier studies focused almost exclusively on archaeological research questions, Duvensee has the potential to reveal not only transformations in human behaviour, but also environmental changes at a detailed scale; we therefore argue for a more holistic perspective and multidisciplinary approach to reconstructing prehistoric landscapes and cultural transformations.