Flute

Using acorn cap as a whistle with two hands:

Find a ripe acorn and separate cap from the seed.

Hold the cap between both thumbs and both pointer (index) fingers, as shown below. Make the "Y" shape with your thumbs and position them to show only the small, top, triangular section of the acorn.

Constrict your lips a little and blow hard, just as if you were blowing out a candle that was 3 feet away from you. The knuckles of your thumbs will rest right in between your lips. The thumb knuckles won't get past your lips into your mouth, though, because your lips are pursed.

Or you can do it like this with a single hand:

Get an acorn cap

Put it between your pointer and middle finger like this

Squeeze you hand in a fist like this

Put the pointer and middle finger knuckles into your mouth and blow like this

When you get it, you'll know it. You will hear a shrill whistle.

How did the first person figured out that this will produce a whistling sound? How did he get the idea to even try this is beyond me. But he did. What he did not do was make the whistle. He just picked an acorn cup, fiddled with it for a bit, and decided to blow on it to see what happens...And an acorn cup whistle was born. 

Could we say that that person invented an acorn cup whistle even though he didn't make it?

Why am I asking this questions?

Because there is currently a debate raging in archaeological community about who invented the first flute. And it is completely concentrated around the question who made the first flute as if making a flute and inventing a flute is the same thing. But as we have just seen making a musical instrument and inventing a musical instrument can be two completely different things...

The first flute

In its most basic form, a flute is an open tube which is blown into. There are several broad classes of flutes. With most flutes, the musician blows directly across the edge of the mouthpiece, with 1/4 of their bottom lip covering the embouchure hole. The vibration of the air column inside the flute tube produced the sound. The longer the flute tube the deeper the note. If you want to produce two different notes, cut two flute tubes of different length. Put several of these flute tubes of different length together and you get pan flute.

However skilful musicians can produce many different notes even with a single flute tube. These are called overtone flutes.

Here is Michal Smetanka, a famous Slovak musician playing traditional flute music from the Carpathian mountains (notably regions of Spis and Saris in Slovakia) using a flute with no holes. This is the most primitive flute there is, basically a hollow stick or reed or bone that you blow into

Now there is an easier way to produce multiple notes with a single flute tube. You bore several (up to 8) holes into the flute tube. When you cover them all with the tips of your fingers, you have again the full tube length as a sound generator. As you lift up different fingers you change the length of the tube which acts as the sound generator and you also change the flow of air through flute tube, resulting in the production of different notes.

Here is great Serbia flute player Vitomir Stanojević playing traditional music from Serbia using flute with holes.

Now all of these flutes are made either from reads or from wood. These are extremely perishable materials and it is no surprise that we didn't find any really old wooden or reed flutes. Maybe people have been making wooden or reed flutes for hundreds of thousands of years, but we will never know that.

However there is another material that people have been making flutes from which is a lot more durable: bone. So how do you make a flute from a bone? This is a cross section of a long bone from a leg, arm or wing.

To make a bone flute from a bone you need to roast or cook the bone, then you need to brake or cut off the solid bone ends (Proximal epiphysis and Metaphysis). This will leave the middle hollow part of the bone (Deaphysis).

Basically what you have is a bone flute tube. That is when you suck out all the bone marrow. Which is why people have been cooking and breaking bones since at least the Palaeolithic.

Bone marrow is delicious. And it is also highly nutritious, full of good fats and proteins and packed with energy. 100 grams of bone marrow has over 700 calories. So if you were Palaeolithic hunter gatherer you were definitely not going to waste such delicious and calorific treat...

So how to eat bone marrow? 

Well you can roast the bones over fire then break them and suck the bone marrow out. You can see how to do this in this great video "Eating bone marrow like a caveman in the forest" from The Wooded Beardsman.

Get a bone

Place it on fire and leave it there to roast

Then get an axe and cut one end off

Or just break the bone in half using a stone

Get a stick and poke the bone marrow to dislodge it

Then suck it out

Or you can cut bones in bits and boil them to make a delicious soup.

Some people think that the first pots were invented so that people could cook bone marrow soups...

By the way, marrow isn’t just delicious and nutritious, it’s healthy, too. According to an article that appeared few years ago in the online issue of Cell Metabolism, University of Michigan researchers concluded that the fat tissue that makes bone marrow so tasty is a significant source of adiponectin, a hormone that helps maintain insulin sensitivity, break down fat and has been linked to a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity-associated cancers. Also proteins contained inside the bone marrow are the best thing you can eat if you are recovering from bone and cartilage injuries...

So once you have eaten all the bone marrow and you have you bone tube all nice and clean you have yourself a flute. Remember flute does not have to have holes. All you need to do is blow over one end under the correct angle and you will make a sound. 

But who was the guy who first blew into a bone tube? And why? He definitely didn't look at the bone tube and said: "you know what, I am going to blow into this thing to make a sound". What I think happened is this: 

Mister Joe Neanderthal or mister Jim Homo sapiens was happily sucking on his bone full of yummy marrow. He has already sucked out most of it, but there was still some left at the bottom. He was about to start poking through the bone with a stick, when the stupid greasy thing slipped our of his hand and fell on the dusty (or sooty) ground. So what did Joe or Jim do? He was not going to just throw half eaten bone away and he was certainly not going to stuff it in his mouth covered in dust or soot. No he picked the bone and blew over the top to get the dirt off. And most of the time nothing spectacular happened. Except the dirt was blown off. But once, when he blew over the bone top under the angle that was just right a sound came out. 

Heads exploding and such stuff...

How long was it before everyone wanted to do the same? Entertainment was crap at those days, so a bone that makes a sound must have been viewed as something special. And soon when Joe, Mick and Mark Neanderthal (or Homo sapiens) all had their own sound making bones, and blew them all together they realised that they are all making different sounds. I don't know how long it took for someone to figure out that the longer the bone the deeper the sound, but that is not really important here...

Anyway once you have you sound making bone tube, otherwise known as flute, all you need to do to make a flute with holes is to drill few holes in it and hay presto. If you are interested in making bone flute yourself, have a look at excellent tutorial by Andy J. Letke which explains in detail how to make a bone flute from a turkey leg bone. Here is the final product:

Now we know that people have been making bone flutes for a very very long time.

This one is from the 18th century and was found during the excavations at Konserthusparken in Linköping, a city in southern Sweden.

This is a deer bone flute from Keynsham Abbey dated to 1344 - 1351

This is a crane ulna flute from Wicken Bonhunt dated 1100 – 1150

This is a crane ulna flute from Lincoln dated 930 - 940

You can read more about medieval from England in these two papers:

"English Medieval Bone Flutes c.450 to c.1550 AD" by Helen Leaf

This is the so called Malham Pipe, a musical instrument formed from the tibia of a sheep originally thought to be Iron Age but now thought to be post-Roman (Anglo-Saxon) in origin.

These are two ancient Roman bone flutes with six finger holes, Museum het Valkhof, Nijmegen

These are bone flutes from Laconia, Artemis Orthia Sanctuary, dated to the second half of 7th century BC

This is a bone flute found in Samtavro Bronze Age warrior grave, Georgia, dated to the 11th - 12th c. BC

This is so called "The Flute of Veyreau", a beautifully decorated flute made of a wing bone (ulna) of a Griffon (or a Black) vulture. It was found in a burial cave in the South of France together with other artefacts and human bones from which the flute was dated by carbon isotope analysis to the end of 2nd millennium BC

A bone flute made from sheep femur was found in Severn-Cotswold tomb, a type of megalithic chamber tomb built by Neolithic people in Wales and South West England around 3500 BC. Unfortunately I don't have any picture of this flute. Information from: "Catalogue of the mesolithic and neolithic collections at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales" by Steve Burrow.

A small bone flute (whistle) probably made of an animal’s long bone, was discovered at the acropolis of Sesklo, Thessaly, Greece. It was dated to the 6th millennium BC. Information from: "Flutes of the  first European farmers" by Beate-Maria Pomberger, Nadezhda Kotova & Peter Stadler

Also three bone flutes were found in the Dispilo Neolithic settlement in Greece dated to 5th millennium BC.  I want to thank Michel Dreher for sending me this pic of the two of these flutes from the site catalogue. The bigger one was made from a human bone :)

These are two out of 22 bone flutes from Isturitz, French Pyrenees, most from later Upper Palaeolithic proveniences, circa 30,000 - 10,000 years BP.

Then there is this one, until recently known as "the oldest-known musical instrument fashioned by human hands". It's a delicate flute made from the wing bone of a vulture that was dated to 35,000 BC. The team of archaeologists discovered the flute littered among a trove of early-human loot at a mountain cave called Hohle Fels in southwest Germany, just north of the Danube valley.

The flute which replaced the Hohle Fels flute as "the oldest-known musical instrument fashioned by human hands" is this one. This is one of the several bone flutes found in Geißenklösterle cave also in the Danube valley. Originally it was thought that these flutes are about 35,000 years old, but recent re-dating revealed them to be far older, with an age of 42,000 to 43,000 years.

Now this is exactly the time when, it is believed, Homo sapiens, entered Europe walking up the Danube valley. There they found Neanderthals and for a long time lived in the same area with them. The archaeologists say that all these flutes were found in caves with only Homo sapiens and not Neanderthal artefacts and remains. 

These Palaeolithic flutes dated to the early period of the Homo sapiens settlement in Europe have been used as a proof that Modern Humans were much more "human" than Neanderthals. Because everyone knows that music is one of the most refined things that Homo sapiens, and only Homo sapiens, are capable of producing.

Interestingly it is the cultured higher human, Homo sapiens, who made musical instruments and obviously enjoyed music, who wiped out the uncultured lower human, Neanderthal, probably between two music sessions...

There are several problems with this story. 

Many archaeologists think the story is probably more complicated than that because, they argue, the art and musical instruments that appeared in Europe around 40,000 years ago are so sophisticated that they must have evolved out of earlier musical and artistic traditions. 

So big questions is: where are the earlier, more primitive flutes that must have predated the sophisticated examples from Danube valley caves?

Well there is one earlier, more primitive example, but it is not found in a cave inhabited by "cultured, sophisticated higher human" Homo sapiens. 

This is it:

This 43,000 years old bone flute was found in a Divje Babe cave in Slovenia where only Neanderthal remains and artefacts were found. The flute is made out of a cave bear femur that was pierced with spaced holes. Archaeologists who discovered the flute, and many other, suggested the holes were man made and that there may have been four originally before the item was damaged. Two of middle holes are still intact and what looks like remains of two more holes can still be seen on either end. 

But not everyone thinks that this a flute. Other archaeologists have argued that the holes are the result of the bone fragment having been chewed by an animal rather than by human design.

The debate (fight) is still raging. It’s a debate that highlights some of the difficulties in identifying early musical instruments. For one thing, they may not have been made entirely from scratch but from materials that, through natural processes, were suitable for making music. 

Now remember the acorn cup whistles? Is an acorn cup whistle a musical instrument? It is. Is it made by a man? No. The invention of the acorn cup musical instrument consisted of the process of recognising how to use this naturally occurring object to produce sound. 

Knowing this, let's say that the holes on this bone were indeed made by a hyena and not by a Neanderthal. Does this mean that this bone was not used as a flute? We can't say. It could have been. We know that flute does not have to have holes. A flute is a tube which produces sound from the flow of air across an opening.

We have no idea for how long have Homo sapiens and possibly Neanderthals been making music by blowing into reads and bone tubes with no holes. 

Even bigger question is how did they get idea to start boring holes in these bone tubes in the first place. This is not something that could have been deduced by either of these humans. 

My guess is that one day, one of them, maybe even a Neanderthal from the Divje babe cave, came across a dried hollow bone with few holes in it made by a hyena. And maybe, he could not resist to blow across the bone opening because he already had a bone flute with no holes. And maybe he then fiddled a bit with the holes on the side of the bone tube putting his fingers over them and moving them away causing the sound to change. 

The realisation that something really important was going on must have been instant: "If I have a bone tube with holes on its side, and I blow into it, and I close and open the holes with my fingers, I get to make a lot more sounds"!!! 

That Homo sapiens or Neanderthal just invented a bone flute with finger holes. He didn't make it. He invented it. He discovered how to use accidentally punctured bone tube as flute with holes. 

Maybe that first bone flute with holes was the very one found in Divje babe cave. Maybe not. Maybe it was some other one which is now lost, or which is yet be found in some Neanderthal or Homo sapiens cave. 

Now I believe that this first bone flute must have been a sensation. It was for one the only one of its kind, so it must have been sort of a status symbol. And I would bet that the word soon spread that Joe Neanderthal or Jim Homo sapiens had this magic flute with holes. 

So I wonder how long did it take before someone decided to get a bone tube with no holes and then drill one or two or three or even more holes into it to see what happens. 

Now I have a bone flute with holes too! Ho! Ho! Ho!

And maybe the man who first blew into a punctured bone tube was Neanderthal and the man who first made his own punctured bone tube was Homo sapiens? Or maybe they were both Neanderthals or both Homo sapiens? We will never know.

The rest is history of gradual improvement of flute as a musical instrument. 

But who made the first flute? 

The hyena who bit off the ends of the bone making the bone tube which it then accidentally  punctured while gnawing on it? 

The man who found this dried punctured bone tube with holes and blew into it while pressing on the holes and producing variable sound?

The man who decided to make his own bone tube with holes so that he can make variable sounds too?

What do you think?

Yeti

This is Tibetan plateau, a vast elevated plateau in Central Asia and East Asia, covering most of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai in western China, as well as part of Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, India. 

It stretches approximately 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) north to south and 2,500 kilometres (1,600 mi) east to west. With an average elevation exceeding 4,500 metres (14,800 ft), the Tibetan Plateau is sometimes called "the Roof of the World" because it stands over 3 miles (4.8 km) above sea level and is surrounded by imposing mountain ranges that harbor the world's two highest summits, Mount Everest and K2, and is the world's highest and largest plateau, with an area of 2,500,000 square kilometres (970,000 sq mi). 

The plateau is the home to Tibetan people and Sherpa people. 

And these people have a very interesting legend. The legend of Yeti. In the folklore of Tibetan plateau, the Yeti or Abominable Snowman is an ape-like creature, taller than an average human, that is said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. The legend says that during the snow storms Yeti comes down from the mountains to the villages and steals local women. The legend of Yeti was widely publicised by the western explorers who not only believed in it but also contributed to it by stories of encounters with Yeti during their expeditions. 

This is a drawing of mountain climbers in the Himalayas spotting an Abominable Snowman or Yeti in the distance circa 1950 in Nepal

The scientific community has generally regarded the Yeti as a legend, given the lack of evidence of its existence. Recently, a genetic study was undertaken during which all the artefacts found throughout the region which were attributed to Yeti (bones, claws, hair) were analysed. The DNA from the samples was matched with Himalayan, Tibetan and Eurasian brown bears and Asian black bears DNA. Based on these results, the researchers concluded that the belief in Yetis has its roots in biological facts and is based on human encounters with bears that still live in the region today. The researchers also concluded that the existence of a large hairy ape like creature in the Himalayan-Tibetan region is indeed a myth which has no base in reality.

And this is where the story of Yeti would have ended. If it wasn't for the strange DNA of the people from Tibetan plateau. Both Tibetan and Sherpa populations are genetically most similar to each other and then to other modern East Asian and Central Asian populations. However there is something very interesting about people from the Tibetan plateau. After modern Oceanic populations, modern Tibetan populations show the highest rate of allele sharing with archaic hominins at over 6%. Modern Tibetans show genetic affinities to three archaic populations: Denisovans, Neanderthals, and an unidentified archaic population. Once scientists started looking closely at these archaic DNA sequences, they discovered something very very interesting. 

Researchers have long wondered how Tibetans live and work at altitudes above 4000 meters, where the limited supply of oxygen makes most people sick. Other high-altitude people, such as Andean highlanders, have adapted to such thin air by adding more oxygen-carrying hemoglobin to their blood. But Tibetans have adapted by having less hemoglobin in their blood; scientists think this trait helps them avoid serious problems, such as clots and strokes caused when the blood thickens with more hemoglobin-laden red blood cells.

In 2010 geneticists discovered that Tibetans have several genes that help them use smaller amounts of oxygen efficiently, allowing them to deliver enough of it to their limbs while exercising at high altitude. Most notable is a version of a gene called EPAS1, which regulates the body’s production of hemoglobin. These genes are not found in any other human population outside of Tibetan plateau. 

Since this gene was discovered the scientists wandered where it came from. And then in 2014, while looking through the genes found in Denisovans DNA, they spotted EPAS1. The mystery was solved. The "superathlete" gene, which helps Sherpas and other Tibetans breathe easily at high altitudes was inherited from Denisovans, one of the archaic human species now extinct. 

But there is the problem. It is commonly accepted that Denisovans went extinct soon after they mated with the ancestors of Europeans and Asians about 40,000 years ago. So the only time when Tibetans could have acquired EPAS1 gene is at that time. But it is also commonly accepted that the Tibetan plateau has only been inhabited by humans for around 15,000 years. Now considering that Tibetan plateau population is the only one in the world which possesses the EPAS1 gene, it is most likely that they acquired it on the Tibetan plateau. Which means that either Denisovans survived on the Tibetan plateau until 14,000 years ago (35,000 years longer then anywhere else in the world), or that modern humans arrived to Tibetan plateau much much earlier than originally thought. 

But this is not the biggest problem that this genetic discovery poses. 

Within Tibetan mythology, the origins of Tibetans are said to be rooted in the marriage of the monkey Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa and rock ogress Ma Drag Sinmo.

This very popular Tibetan creation myth holds that in the beginning the world was covered by water, which evaporated little by little, leaving room for animal life. To the flooded land of Tibet came a monkey that had withdrawn there to immerse himself in meditation and to follow a life of asceticism and chastity. He settled on Mount Gongori. One day, while he sat in meditation, a female demon came to seduce him. She threatened that if he refused to sleep with her she would visit a demon and conceive a multitude of small monsters that would destroy all living creatures. The wise monkey yielded and married her. A few months later six small monkeys were born of their union. The monkey let his six children grow up in the forest, but three years later he discovered that they had become five hundred. The fruits of the forest were no longer sufficient to feed them, and the five hundred monkeys beseeched their father to help them find food. Not knowing what to do, he went to ask help from Avalokiteśvara the god of compassion. Then Avalokiteśvara went on the mount Meru where he gathered a handful of barley, and offered it to the monkey father. Then the monkey father learned agriculture and, after a good harvest, could finally feed all his children. As they fed on the cereals, the monkeys gradually lost their hair and their tails. They also started to use bone and stone implements, then made clothes and built houses, forming a civilization from which the Tibetan people descended.

Now this is very very interesting legend. 

Remember the legend about Yeti. Yeti was a huge hairy ape like creature which came down from the mountains and stole women from the villages. Presumably to mate with them...

The Tibetan origin myth is the exact opposite of the the Yeti legend. It is a legend about the hairy mountain monkey who was seduced by a white female demon who came up to the mountain and who wanted to mate with him...

In both cases the hairy mountain monkey and female that came to (or was brought to) the mountain produced offspring which became the ancestors of the Tibetan plateau population. The population which is the mix of Denisovans (big hairy smart apes???) and modern humans. The population which has the bigger amount of Denisovans DNA than any other human population. The population which is the only human population which inherited the Denisovans high altitude gene EPAS1 which allows people to survive on the roof of the world...

And here is the question: Are these Tibetan plateau legends about mating between humans and huge, smart hairy apes from the mountains memories of the actual mixing between the modern humans who arrived to the Tibetan plateau and Denisovans who they found there?

No, that is not possible, I can hear people say. That mixing occurred at some stage between 14,000 and 40,000 years ago. No memory can survive that long...

Well...Remember my post "Dreamtime"? In it I talked about the fact that we now have proof that some Australian Aboriginal legends are actual histories which are over 45,000 years old...

So it is actually quite possible that these Tibetan plateau legends are also histories which have been preserved as legends for tens of thousands of years.

But why am I talking about the legend of Yeti in the blog about Old European Culture? Well how old are European legends???


PS: Well it turns out that recent archaeological discoveries prove that modern humans did actually arrive to Tibet right on time to first intermix with Denisovans, acquiring the high altitude gene and then exterminate them. 

The Nwya Devu Paleolithic site discovered by this team confirms that human ancestors set foot on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at elevations approaching 5,000 meters above sea level around 30,000-40,000 years ago. It is the first Paleolithic archaeological site discovered in Tibet that preserves intact stratigraphy allowing age-dating of the site’s antiquity. Nwya Devu is located in the Changthang region of northern Tibet, about 300 km northwest of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet Autonomous Region, at about 4,600 meters above sea level.

Neolithic Artemis

The Vinča culture, also known as Turdaș culture or Turdaș–Vinča culture, is a Neolithic archaeological culture dated to the period 5700–4500 BC. It occupied a region of Southeastern Europe (i.e. the Balkans) corresponding mainly to modern-day Serbia (with Kosovo), but also parts of Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Montenegro, Republic of Macedonia, and Greece.

The culture was named for its main site, Vinča-Belo Brdo, a large tell settlement located near Vinča a suburb of Belgrade, Serbia, which was discovered by Serbian archaeologist Miloje Vasić in 1908.

Current consensus is that Vinča culture is an offshoot of the preceding Starčevo culture which belonged to the First Temperate Neolithic (FTN) archaeological horizon, consisting of the earliest archaeological cultures of Neolithic Southeastern Europe, dated to c. 6400–5100 BCE. The cultures of the FTN were the first to practice agriculture in temperate Europe, which required significant innovations in farming technology previously adapted to a mediterranean climate. People from Starčevo culture built the first agricultural temple in Blagotin, Serbia. 

Farming technology first introduced to the region during the First Temperate Neolithic was developed further by the Vinča culture, fuelling a population boom and producing some of the largest settlements in prehistoric Europe. These settlements maintained a high degree of cultural uniformity through the long-distance exchange of ritual items, but were probably not politically unified. Various styles of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figurines are hallmarks of the culture. 

As are the Vinča symbols, which some conjecture to be the earliest form of proto-writing. 

Though not conventionally considered part of the Chalcolithic or "Copper Age", the Vinča culture provides the earliest known example of copper metallurgy. The Vinča site of Pločnik has produced the earliest example of copper tools in the world. Like this copper axe.

However it seems that the people of the Vinča culture practised only an early and limited form of metallurgy and most functional tools continued to be made from chipped stone, bone and antler. 

As I already said, the Vinča culture main site was Belo Brdo (white hill), a large tell settlement located near Vinča a suburb of Belgrade, Serbia. It was, with the surface area of 29 hectares and the population of 2500, by far the biggest Neolithic settlement in Europe. The earliest deposits at Belo Brdo date to around 5700 BCE and belong to the Early Neolithic Starčevo culture. After that Belo Brdo was occupied by people of the Vinča culture. Whether there was a break in habitation on the site is difficult to say as Starčevo layer was severely disturbed by the Vinča people. A total of thirteen building horizons from this period make up the majority of the tell's stratigraphy, as new buildings were constructed on the debris left by periodic fires. The settlement was abandoned by 4900 BCE, some five centuries before the wider collapse of the Vinča culture.

In the Early Vinča phase Belo Brdo seems to have developed into a ritual centre for the entire region, the manufacturing centre for the production of ritual objects. The raw material for these objects often had to be imported from considerable distance, indicating also that from its earliest phase the site was part of large-scale exchange networks. It is therefore thought that Belo Brdo was a key place in a wider Vinča prestige economy, and an abundance of ritual paraphernalia, especially anthropomorphic figurines, is characteristic of the site. 

Many ritual objects first appeared there and then spread to other Vinča sites. And many of these Vinča culture ritual objects are later found in many other cultures throughout Eurasia and North Africa. 

Like for instance Mother and Child ritual scene which was found throughout Vinča culture territory in the 5th millennium BCE.

Among many figurines found on Belo Brdo archaeological site, this next one caught my eye few days ago. 

We can clearly see pair of breasts which means that this was a female figurine. However the figurine does not have human face. Instead it has a bird beak. And then there are what look like two necklaces made of large oval objects of the same size. And many more oval objects of the same size attached to the figurine's chest and legs.

While I was looking at this strange object, I couldn't stop thinking that I have seen it before. It took me a while to figure out where, but I finally remembered.

In Ephesus, a principal city of Greek Asia Minor, a great temple was built in honour of Artemis, which became one of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World". There Artemis was worshiped mainly as a fertility goddess, and was identified with Cybele the mother goddess of eastern lands. The cult statues of the Ephesian Artemis show her standing erect with numerous large oval things on her chest. There have been many theories as to what they represent. Some say they are breasts, others that they are bulls testes which were sacrificed to her. So the true interpretation remains uncertain, we can say that each represents fertility. There is also another possibility, that these oval objects are eggs which are also symbol of fertility and more importantly of rebirth.

The statue of Artemis from Asia Minor looks strikingly similar to the above Vinča culture figurine. And the fact that the Vinča culture statue has bird face, makes the hypothesis that the oval objects are indeed eggs. And not just any eggs. Partridge eggs.

Partridge and its eggs were symbol of fertility in Europe and probably Western Asia before chickens were brought from East Asia. I wrote about the symbolic link between partridge and the female fertility (both human and earth fertility) preserved in the Balkans in my post "Partridge".

But regardless of what the oval objects represent, testicles or eggs, how crazy is the similarity between these two statues? I know how much time passed between these two statues, but still...We know that there are striking similarities between ceramic objects found in Vinča culture sites and in early layers of Troy I. Before the advent of radiocarbon dating it was thought, on the basis of typological similarities, that Vinča and other Neolithic cultures belonging to the "Dark Burnished Ware" complex were the product of migrations from Anatolia to the Balkans. This had to be reassessed in light of radiocarbon dates which showed that the Dark Burnished Ware complex in the Balkans appeared at least a millennium before Troy I. Interestingly no one proposed that Troy I could have been a result of the eastward migration from the Balkans??? And Troy was in Anatolia, Asia Minor, where we find the above intriguing Artemis with eggs statue which is so strikingly similar to the Vinča bird goddess with eggs figurine...

But maybe here we don't see direct cultural link, but the same concept represented in the same way in two cultures separated by thousands of miles and millenniums...Who knows...