Scale of Neanderthal flute

The Ethnomusicology Research Digest just posted information about the
world's oldest known musical instrument, a 43,000-82,000 year old bone
flute. According to the author of a study of the flute's scale, Bob Fink,
the scale is diatonic minor with degrees 2 and 7 missing. (Though he admits
that the third is neutral, he says that the "limits are based on what an
average ear might notice as being in or out of tune.")

The article about the paper says:

"Fink added, "This is the most powerful practical evidence ever in support
of believing there is a natural or acoustical foundation to the evolution of
the diatonic scale." It is also in line with University of California's
(Berkeley) Prof. Anne D. Kilmer's deciphering of the world's oldest known
song from clay tablets, 4,000 years old, indicating the use of both harmony
and of the diatonic scale. It is also supported by recent psychological
studies by Trehub (U. of Toronto), Schellenberg (U. of Windsor), and Kagan
(Harvard) of infants. These studies (Vol. 7 #5 Sept '96 of "Psychological
Science") showed musically untutored infants preferred natural (acoustic)
intervals over dissonant intervals."

I won't quote the long article here, but his paper is at:

http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/fl-compl.htm

Here is an excerpt:

Holes 2, 3 & 4 on the bone (as shown, from left to right) stand in a
significant relationship to each other: The distance between holes 2 and 3
is virtually twice that between holes 3 and 4. The line-up of the holes
indicate that it is a flute.
This means we are looking at a whole-tone and a half-tone somewhere within
a scale. Such a combination of whole-tone and half-tone is the heart and
soul of what makes up 7-note diatonic scales. Without making even one more
measurement beyond this, we can already conclude: These three notes on the
Neanderthal bone flute are inescapeably diatonic and will sound like a
near-perfect fit within ANY kind of standard diatonic scale, modern or
antique. We simply cannot conceive of it being otherwise, unless we deny it
is a flute at all. In essence, the whole story is simply that.
Sometimes the simplicity of a situation, as outlined just above, is so
simple that we are unnecessarily suspicious of the obvious -- that it's just
"too easy" to accept it at first glance, and we tend to over-complicate
things to avoid appearing hasty. Therefore, many experiments and other
approaches were tried, but the simplicity of the issue remains intact.
The remaining hole (left-most first hole on the picture) is the only clue
we have to answer the remaining questions, which is really the bulk of the
paper's subject. To those questions, as one can read, we have come up with a
fit to the Mi, Fa, Sol, La part of a minor scale, which includes a flatted
La and a "neutral" third for Mi, widely used in many cultures, sometimes
called a "blue" note (match no. 2 in the paper). Another match was also
considered viable (no. 1).

Bill

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