The shell is beautifully decorated with red hematite, which means it must have been a particularly valuable item.
Eighty years ago, scientists found an eccentric shell in the French cave of Marsoulas, located between Haute-Garonne and Ariège. However, the shell remained on the shelf for a long time. Until researchers recently decided to dust it off. A good choice. After a thorough analysis, it turns out to be one of the oldest wind instruments on earth.
Cave of Marsoulas
Marsoulas Cave was the first richly decorated cave found in the Pyrenees. The cave, discovered in 1897, marks the beginning of the so-called Magdalenian; one of the later cultures of the late Paleolithic in Western Europe. Most of the finds found in the cave during archaeological excavations are safely stored in the Muséum de Toulouse. One of these finds is the shell of a large sea snail (Charonia lampas) which has not been touched since its discovery in 1931. But now researchers have published a new study in the journal Science Advances, subjected this fascinating shell to a thorough inspection.
Shell
What is particularly striking is that the tip of the shell has broken off, leaving a small hole of about 3.5 centimeters. Since the tip of the shell is the hardest part, this break is clearly not accidental, according to the researchers. Moreover, there appear to be scratches on the other end and the shell is decorated with beautiful red hematite (pigment), characteristic of the cave of Marsoulas. And that could mean that the shell was a particularly valuable object.
The shell in question. The shell has a height of 31 cm, a diameter of 18 cm (at its widest point) and a thickness of about 0.8 cm. Image: Carole Fritz et al. 2021
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All these interesting features indicate that the shell may have been used as a wind instrument in the past. To find out whether the shell can produce beautiful sounds, the researchers enlisted the help of a practiced horn player. And indeed he managed to produce three sounds from the shell that were close to the notes C, C # and D.
Not only have researchers now discovered that the shell was probably used as a wind instrument, it also turns out to be one of the oldest ever. The researchers used carbon dating from the cave, performed on a piece of charcoal and a fragment of a bear bone from the same layer as the special seashell, to find out its exact age. And it shows that the wind instrument was manufactured about 18,000 years ago. This makes’ Marsoulas’ shell ‘the oldest wind instrument of its kind.
Exchange
The discovery of this ancient shell is of course very special and gives us a unique insight into the culture of the people who inhabited the cave of Marsoulas almost 20,000 years ago. But there’s more. “However, this shell doesn’t just immerse us in the sounds of our Magdalen ancestors,” the researchers write. “It also reinforces our idea that there were exchanges between people from the Pyrenees and the Atlantic coast, which is about 200 kilometers away.”
The wind instrument is probably not quite complete anymore. Irregularities around the opening of the shell and traces of a layer of organic material suggest that a mouthpiece was once attached to it. The researchers rely on more recent finds of other shells that were used as musical instruments. The team plans to fabricate 3D models of the shell for further investigation. They also want to discover whether the shell can produce notes other than C, C sharp and D.
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