It’s a Fragment from the thigh bone of a young cave bear, and proposed that this had been crafted as a flute by the prehistoric man. When uncovered, many questions
Like ‘was this artifact crafted as a flute? Or were the spaced holes the result of chewing by a carnivore?’ were raised. There has been an amazing amount of analysis, discussion, debate, and disagreement on the subject, and the debate continues today. The Divje Babe artifact is 43,100 years old (±700 years), based on radio-carbon dating. The artifact is 4.47" (11.36 cm) in length and is broken at both ends. It has two complete holes and what may be the incomplete remains of one hole on each end, meaning that the bone may have had four or more holes before being damaged. The maximum diameters of the two complete holes are 0.38" and 0.35" (9.7 mm and 9.0 mm). The distance between the centers of the holes is 1.38" (35 mm). Assuming that the Divje Babe artifact was crafted as a flute, one analysis …show more content…
These fingerings are called fork fingerings and the tones of these fork fingerings sounded not too good. There came extra holes and keys on the flute to get rid of the fork fingerings. Around 1775 the flute had four keys: d sharp, b flat key, g sharp key and f key. Eventually more and more keys were added to the flute, but there still wasn't a good system for the keys. The very famous English flautist Charles Nicholson (1795-1837) introduced larger holes for the fingers and a larger hole for the mouth piece in order to get a better sound. The famous flute maker Theobald Boehm (1794-1881) once heard Charles Nicholson play in a concert. Boehm was so impressed by his sound that he started developing the flute further. In 1832 the flute with key mechanism by Theobald Boehm was ready. Boehm called this new flute Ringklappenflöte. With this mechanism playing the flute became much easier and the flute did sound much