Pieces Of The Past

No one will ever hear this flute played or even know for sure what it would sound like. Experts do know it's about 31 centimeters long and has two chambers, making it the prototype for the modern Native American flute; it's made of river cane -- a type of bamboo that grows in hollow sections separated by nodes; and it's between 800 and 1,000 years old.

It is, says Jim Rees, the oldest extant flute -- at least in the Americas. Rees didn't find it. But it might be said he rediscovered it.

Rees, who has bachelor's degrees in music, a master's degree in social studies education and a master's degree in anthropology, "just happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right background," he says. He had retired from teaching and was volunteering his time at the University of Arkansas Museum Collection Facility when he began to find musical instruments among the pot shards, arrowheads and bone fragments. "I had the background for dealing with it and became really interested in it," he says modestly.

Rees will speak on his work at noon Wednesday as part of the Sandwiched In series at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale. His presentation is titled "The Music Archaeology of the Prehistoric Ozarks."

"It's a field not well known in the United States," Rees begins to explain music archaeology, "mostly because prehistoric peoples north of [what is now the Mexico-U.S.] border made most of their musical instruments out of perishable materials like wood and cane and gourds -- things that don't preserve well."

Rees goes on to say that the field is much better known in Europe, Mexico, Central America and particularly in the Andes of South America, "because in those areas, a lot of musical instruments were made of pottery -- things like flutes and whistles and even drums. So it's a much more popular field of study in those areas. In the United States? Not so much.

"Music archaeology," he continues, "is really all about trying to gain access to ancient soundscapes -- especially to those organized, human-made sounds we call music. Music is an important aspect of all cultures, and studying it is a good way to understand any culture. If you think about the way music makes you feel, you understand its power. So if you want to understand ancient cultures, it's important to get some access to their music.

"But you can't dig it up, and there were no recording devices or systems of musical notation," he adds. "So gaining access to it is very difficult. You mostly have to study music artifacts."

Rees was doing an inventory of a bluff shelter collection from the 1930s -- which had been on the shelf at the University Museum for 80-plus years -- when he discovered whistles and flutes.

"This particular flute was found by Sam Dellinger," he says, referring to the longtime curator of the University Museum, renowned for building its archaeology collection into one of the best in the nation. It was discovered at the Breckenridge Bluff Shelter, on the shore of Beaver Lake in Carroll County, and has become so well known since its rediscovery that it is called the "Breckenridge flute."

"I'm sitting here looking at a replica," Rees says in a phone interview. "It is a working facsimile. We don't know exactly what [the music from 1020-1160 C.E.] sounded like, but probably the music played on the modern Native American flute today by artists like John Tw0-Hawks would be similar."

Rees will also discuss other ways to learn about ancient music, such as the iconography found on pottery; a gourd rattle discovered in a bluff shelter under one of the I-49 overpasses; and a ceramic whistle located near Pine Bluff -- "so far as we know, the only one found in the southeast so far," although it's similar to whistles found in Nicaragua.

"Most archaeologists in North America haven't ever encountered a music artifact," Rees says. "Even if they were to find one, they might not recognize what it was -- they are that rare."

NAN What's Up on 11/13/2015