9000-Year-Old Flute Again

> It would seem unusual to me that a 9000 year old flute would be attempting
> to approximate 12TET, given the relative youthfulness and western bent of
> that system.

Admitting that I've only read a short fragment of the website on this flute,
and acknowledging that perhaps I'm underestimating these archeologists, I'll say
that I kinda doubt if they have the same perspective and detail on tuning
considerations as subscribers of this list do. Not many people do. I suspect
that, from their perspective, they would classify as approximating 12TET any
tuning wherein the intervals of the scale are closer to an integer number of
12ths of an octave than they are to the quartertones between them. I rather
doubt if they're more concerned with the question at a greater level of detail
than that.

Gary Morrison wrote...

>Admitting that I've only read a short fragment of the website on this flute,
>and acknowledging that perhaps I'm underestimating these archeologists, I'll
>say that I kinda doubt if they have the same perspective and detail on tuning
>considerations as subscribers of this list do. Not many people do. I
>suspect that, from their perspective, they would classify as approximating
>12TET any tuning wherein the intervals of the scale are closer to an integer
>number of 12ths of an octave than they are to the quartertones between them.
>I rather doubt if they're more concerned with the question at a greater level
>of detail than that.

And if the men who made it were, I doubt it would have survived 9000 years
on an instrument such as a flute, which has variable intonation anyway. I
think it is enough -- fascinating, in fact -- to say that these guys were
aware of the diatonic scale, that the scale is approximating a chain of
seven 3:2's.