Imagine holding an instrument in your hands, an instrument that connects you to people who lived thousands of years ago. That's the reality facing researchers in Spain, and their findings could rewrite the history of music as we know it. Could ancient shells discovered in Spain be among the oldest musical instruments ever found? The answer seems to be a resounding yes, and the implications are profound.
Miquel López García, now an accomplished archaeologist, musicologist, and trumpet player, traces his fascination with sound back to his childhood. He recalls being captivated by a conch shell in his family's bathroom in Almería, a region in southern Spain. His father's family used this shell to warn villagers of impending floods, blowing it to produce a distinctive, powerful sound. Little did he know that his childhood curiosity would lead him to unlock secrets of the distant past.
Fast forward to last year, and López García found himself putting his lips to eight ancient conch-shell trumpets. He believes the tones that emanated from these shells hold invaluable insights into the lives of people who inhabited northeastern Spain as far back as 6,000 years ago. Alongside Margarita Díaz-Andreu, a research professor at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, López García argues that these shells, discovered in Neolithic settlements and mines in Catalonia, served as both long-distance communication devices and rudimentary musical instruments. Their research, published in the journal Antiquity, is challenging our understanding of early human ingenuity.
But here's where it gets controversial... The researchers observed that the shells appeared to have been collected after the sea snails inside (Charonia lampas) had died. This suggests that they weren't gathered for food. And the pointed tips of the shells had been removed, further supporting the hypothesis that they were modified to function as trumpets. Could it be that early humans prioritized music and communication over sustenance? This sparks a debate about the very origins of art and its role in early societies.
To rigorously test their hypothesis, López García and Díaz-Andreu secured permission to conduct acoustic experiments on eight sufficiently intact shell trumpets. In November 2024, López García managed to produce a "really powerful, stable tone" from the shells. "It’s quite amazing that you get that very recognisable tone from a simple instrument that is just a very slightly modified animal body," he explains. "I think the closest instrument today in terms of tone is the french horn."
But the researchers weren't content with simply producing a single tone. They wanted to explore the shells' full musical potential. "We wanted to see if any of the pieces we played had room for improvisation or for the exploration of sound resources," López García says. "So we made recordings of the small improvisations we played on these instruments. We realised that by doing different things, we could shape the tone of how the shell sounded and also the notes." He discovered that by placing his hand into the opening of the shells, he could alter and lower their tone. Similarly, blowing in with a "t-sound" or an "r-sound" changed the timbre.
"These are basically among the first instruments – or pieces of sound technology – that we know of throughout all human history," López García emphasizes. "They work by the vibrations of your lips, and the way you produce sound with them is very similar to modern-day brass instruments, such as trumpets and trombones; the shells are their most ancient ancestors." He and Díaz-Andreu suggest these instruments were used for communication between communities, or between settlements and individuals working in the agricultural landscape. The conches might also have been used by workers in different sections of the variscite mines where six of the shells were discovered. Imagine the echo of these ancient horns reverberating through the mines!
And this is the part most people miss... López García points out that the Catalan shells aren't isolated finds. "We know that this is one of the oldest and longest-surviving sound-producing technologies known to humans – at least on the continent of Europe," he states. He draws a comparison to a conch shell trumpet found in the Marsoulas Cave in southern France, which has been dated to around 18,000 BC. This suggests that nearly identical instruments were used from 18,000 years ago right up until the middle of the last century, when López García's own family was using a conch shell in Almería.
Like the Marsoulas conch, which was overlooked in a museum collection for over 80 years before its musical potential was recognized, the Catalan shells possess "expressive qualities" that hint at broader musical applications, going beyond mere utilitarian purposes. López García believes that these instruments could have met the minimum requirements for developing music and expression. He asks, "While these instruments have had a very utilitarian function ethnographically, they’re also instruments with sufficient melodic capacity to provide an expressive musical function... We think it’s plausible that beyond their utilitarian and pragmatic use, these instruments could also have been used for expressive discourses."
As a versatile musician himself, López García's exploration of these ancient shells has prompted him to contemplate the origins of human musical expression. He asks, "The whole debate about to what extent music is a utilitarian matter and to what extent it’s an aesthetic, expressive, emotional, much more personal matter, has always really fascinated me." Were early musical instruments born out of necessity and survival, or were they driven by a deeper human need for self-expression, connection, and the sharing of emotions?
What do you think? Were these ancient instruments primarily tools for communication, or were they also used to create music and express emotions? Could music have played a more vital role in early human societies than we previously thought? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
