Music at the Dawn of Humanity

We cannot know when our European ancestors first engaged in musical activities. Whenever such activities involve using only the body or the voice, they leave no material trace. To create an archaeological record, music-making needed to shape the environment – perhaps by leaving traces where ringing stones in the form of stalagmites were hit or by the creation of sound tools and musical instruments as such. However, most prehistoric tools would not survive for long as the materials from which they were made, such as wood, bark, hollow plant stems, animal skin, sinews or twisted gut, decay all too quickly. Only where the most durable materials were involved we are able to detect more or less unequivocal evidence of musical activity.