Ancient music is the most mysterious page in the history of any national culture. In ancient times, there was no technical equipment for recording, so the music of our ancestors was not preserved. About it "tells us" primarily archaeological sources - the original musical instruments found during excavations, or their image on various subjects.

One of these artifacts is archaic musical bones found in Chernihiv region, near the village of Mezin, Ukraine.

Archaeologists have found the remains of mammoth bones that resemble drum and noise instruments.

So, in 1907, the manager of the affairs of the provincial scientific committee of the archival commission P. M. Dobrovolsky, received the news that in the courtyard of the Koszhel Cossack in the village of Mizin, Chernigov province found large bones, conducted the first excavations and published their results. Familiar with his work, the famous Ukrainian archaeologist Khvydir Vovk in 1908 began a regular study of this territory.

It was called the Myzinska Paleolithic parking, which existed about 20 thousand years ago. In August, 1908, the XIV Archaeological Congress took place in Chernihiv, where the bones of fossil animals and flintlings, found in the village of Mezin, were delivered and exhibited for inspection.

Under a shallow layer of land on an area of ​​1200 square meters. meters remained the remains of five homes of the Cro-Magnon, so-called household and residential complexes. The economic complex №1 is the largest and most fully studied by archaeologists. It is relatively well preserved. Archaeologists managed to reconstruct the main part with certainty. By the way, this housing is exhibited at the Museum of Archeology of the city of Kiev.

Here is a list of the finds of the household-complex number 1:

- Mamont bones are ornamented with red ocher - shovel, thigh, part of the pelvis, two lower jaw, fracture of the skull;

- undrawned - fragments of the tusks, hammer from the horns of a deer, "noise" bracelet from plates, carved from mammoth tusk.

These bones lay close to each other.

Nearby - three large pile of red and yellow ocher - a natural mineral paint.

As soon as the painted mammoth bones were found, they were immediately identified as objects of religious purpose. Archaeologists also assumed that some part of the bones hung on the wall of Yaranga (portable housing of some peoples of the North), for example, a shoulder blade. I.G.Shvkoplyas, the first published an article on ornamented bones, however, argued that due to the lack of analogies it was difficult for him to determine the real purpose of these objects. I. Podoplychko came to the conclusion that the place of accumulation of painted bones is a cult (red) corner, a kind of "deity", also in the sense of music, rhythm.

women and man cromanion

Materials related to the results of the excavations of the household-complex number 1 were carefully studied, namely: the nature of the occurrence of cultural remains on the floor of the house, the group of painted bones, their territorial proximity to other findings ("noise" bracelet, kalatalo, hammer, cluster of ocher).

In addition to conventional archaeological and paleontological bone studies, judicial expert tools, optical instruments, trasologic, photoanalysis and other methods for studying bones were used.

With the help of technical means were found on the bones of the surface area with obvious violations of the natural state as a result of various mechanical actions (blows).

Judicial experts drew attention to the state of the form and substance of the bone at the end of the working edge of the hammer. The shape of the edge and structure of matter on this site are unusual. "The surface of the shock parts is rough, the edges of the circle are rounded and smoothed ... The presented fragment of the horn of the reindeer has been repeatedly used to strike hard surfaces, possibly on the bones". Used as musical instruments.

used as musical instruments

Later, a tramlical study of the mammoth bones from housing №1 was carried out by the experimental trasological laboratory of the Institute of Archeology.

The latter has established that the groups of traces on the surfaces of the bones have an artificial origin.

She also noted the sagacity of the ornament on the surface of the bones, which suffered frequent and concentrated strikes, revealed traces of painted ornamentation on the inner side of the right half of the mammon's jaw.

The intention is to remove the spongy substance from the epiphyseal part and the brain canal of the ornamented thigh of the mammoth.

In addition, the location and the number of places of wear on the surfaces of bones of the mammoth from the residential building No. 1 were specified.

General conclusion:

"The nature of the traces of wear on the surfaces of the bones testifies to their continued use. Already we can say that these worked areas were not the working surfaces of some economic or industrial tools.

The aggregate of the traces of wear suggests that the microscope under the lens of the ridge and flattened, as if it were obliterated, microrelief vertices were formed as a result of numerous light, springy, targeted strikes, also caused by a light object with a small working surface.

Visible on the surface of the linear signs - the result of sliding the latter in the working area. Such an object could serve as a hammer from the horns of the reindeer.

Confirmation of this is a certain conformity of traces of wear on the working surfaces of the studied bones and hammer.

Moreover, the reddish ocher, preserved in the pores of the sponge mass of the hammer, came here from the ornamented localized sections of the bones, the ornament of which was partially shot down by such a shock instrument. The accumulation of trassological analysis data allows us to see in the subjects studied the most ancient percussion instruments used for an extremely long time"

impacted musical instruments of the late Paleolithic

Based on our analysis, we can restore the state of each instrument in the form in which it was used in the game, for musical purposes.

The mammoth blade was installed almost vertically, relying on the corners. Used in the shoulder blade and in a sloping position, it was placed on the comb. In the game on the shoulder blade, her neck was covered with a brush of her left hand, like a neck on modern string instruments.

Pull out the sounds with a hammer. The bumps were applied mainly to the area of ​​the subcutaneous fossa. The mammoth ramp was used horizontally. It is possible that under it were laid supports for a large isolation of the lower thigh plane from a collision with the ground.

To strengthen the resonator's thigh, the upper epiphysis was removed and in the bone a canal was made up to 13 cm wide. With this bone treatment, an artificial cavity was created that enhanced the acoustic properties of the bone, its sound, and timbre.

One half of the pelvis was installed vertically. In this position, the pelvis remained firm.

Sounds were taken with the help of blows to the center of the bone, to the place where there was a slight natural concavity of the bone, depression.

The jaws of the mammoth before the game, most likely, were necessarily placed on the left unharmonized half. In this form, the jaw was quite stable.

Impacts were applied on the outer surface of the right half of the root portion of the jaw.

It remains unclear whether intentionally removed from the alveoli teeth in one of the jaws, to increase the resonator's bone, or this is an accident.

The skull of the mammoth was installed, probably, as well as in the construction of houses, that is, on the nasal bones. In this form, it retained the greatest stability. They hit the frontal and parietal bones.

The use of calendula from the mammoth tusk, a hammer from the horn of the reindeer, and the "noise" bracelet does not require clarification.

Music bones and props were stored in a special room for this purpose. They used them, apparently, at the same time.

The number of participants in such a musical "ensemble", according to our assumption, was not less than six or seven people. Obviously, having been housed near the house (dragging bones was not easy), the artist team "played" before the entire population of the village, which probably, for its part, participated in certain dance ceremonies.

After the execution, so-called percussion instruments, returned to the place and formed a "roller coaster". That's why they found their collapse of the roof, slightly breaking the tightly grouped position.

dance Cro-Magnon

In 1980, the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR appealed to the All-Union Company "Melody" with the request to record the sound of the bones of the mammoth on the plate.

In this case, SNBibikov appealed to the senior teacher of the Kyiv Conservatory, a concertmaster of percussion instruments of the State Symphony Orchestra of the Ukrainian SSR VI Kolokolnikov, requesting to make this unique record. Investigating all the instruments of the mammoth bones, V.I. Kolokolnikov determined the role of each of them in the ensemble.

It is known that in Europe there are many images on the rocks that give the right to believe that the Cro-Magnonians had ritual dances.

kromanyon dances drawings on the rocks

It is obvious that such an ensemble could be combined with these dances, as well as accompany other ceremonies.

V.I.Kolokolnikov specifically listened to the performances of some archaic musical ensembles and collectives, he also read the rituals and customs of the northern peoples.

As a result of this painstaking work, several rhythmic compositions were developed for execution on mammoth bones.

To prevent ancient instruments from falling apart during the recording, they were taken to the Leningrad Hermitage, where the masters subjected the bones to restoration and conservation.

On the prepared "tools" of VI Kolokolnikov and four of his students - G. Chernenko, S. Khmelov, D. Ulyanov, N. Tsyurik created a kind of ensemble.

He helped them and SN Bibikov who "played" on the lower jaw of the mammoth.

The recording was carried out in the museum. The conditions were not studio, but due to the professionalism of the performers and the audio operator, the recording was done very quickly and qualitatively.

Thus, with a great degree of reliability, music was reproduced, "written" in the Paleolithic era.

The performers recreated rhythmic compositions that, in their opinion, could accompany ritual dances, express joy on the occasion of a successful hunt, and so on.

S.N. Bibikov noted that the sounds extracted from the bones should be considered as a model of the past. And this is the first step towards understanding the organization of "orchestration", the shock rhythm during the dance-plastic actions of our distant ancestors.

We built an invisible bridge of twenty thousand years old.

The hard work of many years ended in 1980 or 1982, when the "Melody" company, known in the former USSR, produced a disc with the sound reproduction of an ancient ensemble.

Using the modern classification of musical instruments of shock type, according to the author of the article, the musical musical bones can be categorized into a group of drums with an undetermined height of sounding. Or rather, self-echoing, resonator (thigh, skull, to some extent, jaw) and non-resonator (shovel, scarlet, bracelet).

If you draw parallels between ancient shock instruments and modern, then you can trace their similarity in design, by sound production and on timbre.

The author of the article suggests that musical bones of mammoth resemble modern wooden idiofones (percussion instruments with a wooden resonator).

Among them: xylophone, marimba, castanets, wooden boxes, temple blocks, guiro, maracas, chocolates, claves, creeps, saxophones, flutes and others.

Some similarity also exists with membrane shock instruments, the origin of which is due to the shock excitation of skin vibration (membrane) stretched to the resonator housing.

To membrane phones include - lithoires, large and small drums, tambourines, there-tami, bongs and others.