I have referenced Dauvois and Bahn but would appreciate additional information about excavated examples, in particular their age and location.
Neil, what other methods beyond morphological similarity can be used to make more secure inferences about possible UP artifacts having been used as bullroarers? See the cautions in: Morley, Iain, 2013. The Prehistory of Music: Human Evolution, Archaeology, & the Origins of Musicality. Oxford University Press, Oxford. - there are some additional references in the section on bullroarers on pp. 105-109, maybe you are already familiar with the ones other than Dauvois and Bahn.
This is true what you caution against. Certainly I will look at the reference that you provide. I do have Morley's PhD thesis (2003) and his intimations are tentative even then a decade ago. On the other hand I have made a replica of the Bahn example. When strung and swung the sound that it produces, well how can I say: it is difficult not to associate it with the sound of a bull roarer. The frequency range of the replica is 170-230-Hz which is a little higher than the samples that I have as comparison. This latter type were known as a !goin !goin and were used by the /xam San Bushmen. There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that the southern San employed this instrument to make sound for their communal healing/trance dances, which is the focus of my investigations.
I have suggested tentatively that some antler pendants at Neolithic Catalhoyuk (Turkey) might be bull-roarers. They look like at least roughly the right shape, and I found it odd that they all looked unfinished, whereas most of the pendants are quite thoroughly worked. The wear shows they were suspended from the hole. So I suspect they are something other than decorative, at any rate; perhaps weights if not bullroarers.
Russell, Nerissa
2005 Çatalhöyük worked bone. In Changing Materialities at Çatalhöyük: Reports from the 1995-99 Seasons. I. Hodder, ed. Pp. 339-367. McDonald Institute Monographs, No. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
Micro-analysis of the wear on these artifacts might help to resolve some of their ambiguity, I would think? In similar vein there is, besides the bull roarer, another intriguing sound-producing ‘artifact’. It’s known locally as a woer-woer, or wirra-wirra or otherwise a whirly-gig. Because they too exist in the present, like the bull roarer (Musical Instruments of the Indigenous People of Southern Africa, 2013. Wits U.P.), it’s easy to retro-fit present use onto the artifacts. The two samples that I’ve replicated are based on excavated examples -3300-8000 BP. With these artifacts I am more circumspect in allocating a musical provenance because they could equally, to my mind, be pendants or again, not to rule out the possibility, may have doubled as both.
Earlier in this conversation I mentioned the /xam San !goin !goin (bullroarer/ aerophone). The article that I was working on has now been published. Article Sound artefacts: Recreating and reconnecting the sound of th...
Rusty Greaves Nerissa Russell Alicia J. M. Colson It has taken a while, two years, but finally we have published results that combine use-wear, morphological study and sound experimentation, conducted on artefacts previously described as .pendants. Free to download within the next 50 days, https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1YgEk,rVDBNrCS
Nerissa Russell Rusty Greaves Alicia J. M. Colson a return to the bullroarer topic. Abstract and title of our Sarah Wurz article published in the Journal of Archaeological Science Reports
The Doring River bullroarers rock painting: Continuities in sound and rainmaking
The archaeological record of the Upper and Epi Paleolithic has produced several objects with sound-producing potential of the aerophone type, interpreted as bullroarers. Recently a similar implement was identified in the Later Stone Age of the southern Cape, in the Matjes River Wilton layers. In this paper we present a depiction from the Cederberg showing a group of eight human figures, each playing what morphologically resembles bullroarer aerophones. Using digital image recovery techniques we could ascertain sufficient detail to replicate these instruments and record their sound. Using the same digital methods we conclude that the group scene is a palimpsest of two painting events, thematically and spatially connected although separated in time. The sound-producing qualities of the replicated instruments are assessed through actualistic and experimental research. Results are evaluated with reference to our earlier analysis of ethnographic and archaeological aerophone models recovered in the region. In previous work we linked ASC (altered states of consciousness) and ESA (enhanced states of association) to the sounds created by aerophones. In this study we consider aspects of topography and landscape, contextualized within a time-frame provided by the archaeology of the Doring River valley and environs. We suggest that the painting and the sound-making depicted is most likely related to ‘working with rain’, an intervention aimed at influencing !Khwa and the hydrology in the arid Karoo region.
Neil, Many thanks for the notification on your bull roarer articles, I'm looking forward to reading these over. Best regards, Rusty