Autistic traits in cognitive and material engagement: technical design and music capabilities of Palaeolithic bone flutes

Milošević, Stefan and Nešić, Janko (2024) Autistic traits in cognitive and material engagement: technical design and music capabilities of Palaeolithic bone flutes. In: Philosophy, Cognition, and Archaeology. University of Belgrade – Faculty of Philosophy, Beograd, pp. 31-51. ISBN 978-86-6427-321-3

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Abstract

: Bone flutes found in Palaeolithic contexts in Europe represent the earliest archaeological evidence of technically elaborated music instruments made by Palaeolithic humans. One of them was found at the site of Divje Babe, together with the Mousterian lithic assemblage typically associated with the Neanderthals. The other is the assemblage of bone flute fragments from early modern human sites of Hohle Fels, Vogelherd, Geißenklösterle, and Isturitz associated with Aurignacian lithic assemblage, but also with other numerous symbolic artefacts such as bone and ivory figurines and per�sonal/cloth adornments. They both come from the brims of the Alps and date to modern human and Neanderthal cohabitation in Europe between 50–35 thousand years BP. While their context, manufacture technology, and mod�ern archaeological experiment replicas are known, little has been discussed about the topics of cognition, epigenetic variations, and moods that affect the manufacture, playing, and listening to the music in the period of the Ne�anderthal and early modern human cohabitation. Based on the integration of insights from archaeology, evolutionary psychiatry and philosophy of cog�nition, we offer a cognitive archaeological discussion on how autistic traits could have influenced the development of these cognitive capabilities and particular musical inventions encounte red in these cases.

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