World: Earliest Extant Instruments

Hundreds of examples of broken pipes made from animal, bird or human bones, and pipes made from clay,
have been found world-wide. Some of these may have developed into the three-hole pipe as we know it today.
There is no evidence as yet that they were played with any percussion instrument. These are random examples
of excavated early pipes.

Drums also have a long history.

replica, back of Divje Babe, Sloveniareplica Slovenia		60,000-years ago, Neanderthal bear femur bone pipe, Divje Babe, Slovenia. Originally four holes, possibly made with pointed stones and bone tools Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor played on a clay replica
		43,000 BCE Upper Paleolithic mammoth ivory, Hohle Fels, southern Germany
		25,000 BP Gravettian period, vulture bone (radius) Isturitz cave, Basque country, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France
		12,000 BP Eynan-Mallaha, Northern Israel. 7 pipes from bird wing bones, humerus, ulna and radius from the Eurasian teal and the Eurasian coot All the instruments have been used
		prehistoric Mexico
		prehistoric Mexico
		Stone/Bronze age transitional period, Vallby, Scania, Sweden
		3rd-4th century BCE China
		300 BCE-300CE clay, western Mexico
		2nd century A.D, Roman times, Flavia Solva, Austria
replica c.950AD		c.950 AD Haithabu swan bone flute, North Germany
		7th-9th centuries made of the right ulna of a whooper or a mute swan Wijnaldum-Tjitsma, Netherlands
Anglo-Saxon, the Malham pipe		Anglo-Saxon 7th-8th century lamb tibia bone, Malham pipe, Yorkshire, England. Tune played on this pipe here
reconstruction Clifford Street, York, England [fig 9b] Recreation played Made and Photo by Lucy-Anne Taylor		Anglo Scandinavian swan ulna pipe, Clifford Street, York, England
reconstruction 11th century Poland		11th century Poland
		1008 onwards wood pipe, Colletiere, Paladru Lake, France
		12th/13th century bone Abingdon, England
replica of early 13th century pipe Denmark		early 13th century sheep shin bone (tibia) one hole underneath; Åarhus, Denmark
		medieval pipe made from goose ulna, Southgate Street, Gloucester, England [number 25]
		after c1200 crane lower leg, Lady Wooton’s Green, Canterbury, England
		1200-1232 sheep or goat bone, Trichay Street, Exeter, England
		1100-1500 bone, Vreta, Östergötland, Sweden Credit: Stahre, Sanna, Historiska museet/SHM (CC BY 4.0)
		13th century (?) sheep tibia, excavated from a moat round a monastery in Deventer the Netherlands. The (shrunken) wooden block is still in place. Photo by the authors/Provincial Depot A. Verlinde, Deventer.
one possible reconstruction Turku, Finland medieval Turku, reconstruction played		medieval sheep shin bone, Turku, Finland (town was founded at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries)
		medieval pig tibia, Cambridgeshire, England
		13th-16th century sheep or goat tibia bone, The castle of Teutonic Order in Viljandi, Estonia LIETUVOS ARCHEOLOGIJA. 2012. T. 38, p. 295–338. page 317, fig 19
		15th century wood pipe, Novgorod, Russia
		Russia wood
replica sheep bone pipe replica being played
2019 Viking	Viking player	A good history of flutes/pipes is here and succeeding pages.
		19th century bone, Costa Rica
		bone 3-hole pipe from the Amazon, date not known; ornamented with beetle wings
		1900-1950 bone, Tukano people, northwestern portion of Brazil, southeastern portion of Colombia
		2013 bone pingullo, Ecuador made by Luis Alberto Gonzáles, used with a drum

Jemez Pueblo makes eagle bone whistles and pipes
1568 Human bone flutes in America: “And they will gather together painted with various colours decorated with feathers and similar items, with lots of ceremony and entertainments, with dances, plays, tabour and pipes made of the arm and leg bones of their enemies” ‘The new found worlde, or Antarctike : wherein is contained wo[n]derful and strange things, as well of humaine creatures, as beastes, fishes, and serpents, trées, plants, mines of golde and siluer: garnished with many learned aucthorities’.by Thieved, Andre.

earliest drum

30,000 BCE elephant skin drum preserved from scavenging as it was buried in ice in Antarctica’s ice age. There is no evidence that it was used with a pipe. Other drums from natural objects such as alligator skin appeared during 5500 BC in Neolithic cultures originating in China and spread to all of Asia. From around 1200 AD Mediterranean trading routes opened up due to the Crusades which brought incredible wealth to Genoa and Venice, enabling the spreading of Middle Eastern, African, Indian and Asian influences over Europe including use of loud drums.
12,000 BP drumstick made from Reindeer antler found at Brillenhöhle, Blaubeuren-Seissen, Alb-Donau-Kreis, south-western Germany
1300-1520 AD In central and west Mexico drumsticks were fashioned from the bones of recently dispatched sacrificial victims or enemies killed in battle. 'The missing femur at the Mitla Fortress and its implications' Antiquity / Volume 84 / Issue 326 / December 2010

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the Pipe and Tabor compendium

the Pipe and Tabor compendium

essays on the three-hole pipe

World: Earliest Extant Instruments