Echoes of Stone and Bone

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When did we learn to make melody from stone and bone? Archaeologist Dr Brenna Hassett takes us on a several-million-year-long journey to ask how we came to be the species that makes music. It is the story of noise. Purposeful, beautiful noise. And the unbelievable talent we have for adapting the material world we live in to make instruments that make music. We have so far looked at the evolution of the human singing voice and at the very first instruments we would have grafted from grasses, reeds and wood - long since rotted away. It is now time to get to some hard evidence. Evidence that has survived down many millennia: evidence in solid stone and bone. This series of essays is part of Key Changes: Radio 3's Essential History of Classical Music Written and read by Dr Brenna Hassett from the University of Lancashire Produced and directed by Becky Ripley