Potengowski, Anna Friederike

Prehistoric music refers to all musical activity that predates writing systems and recorded history. It encompasses the sounds, instruments, and performance practices of Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic peoples long before formal musical notation or named composers existed. Rather than fixed repertoires, prehistoric music was a living practice tied to daily life, ritual, and environment. Voices, bone flutes, shell horns, drums, rattles, clapped stones (lithophones), and resonant caves functioned as both instruments and acoustic spaces. Its organization was likely cyclic and participatory, favoring pulse-driven rhythms, drones, call-and-response, and heterophony over harmonies and chords. Archaeological finds such as Aurignacian bone flutes in the Swabian Jura (Germany), the controversial Divje Babe artifact (Slovenia), and Jiahu flutes (China) attest to a wide geographic spread and deep antiquity. While unknowable in detail, prehistoric music laid the groundwork for the world’s ancient musical traditions.