{"id":"GREGOR1985-001","label":"Ukraine's phantom oldest bullroarer","people_or_site":"Ukraine Paleolithic claim","country_current":"Ukraine","historic_region":"Ukraine, site not specified by Gregor","macroregion":"Europe / Eastern Europe","local_name":"","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"secondary_catalog","source_key":"gregor1985","source_type":"comparative_secondary","source_url":"https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo25967220.html","page_or_plate":"Gregor 1985, p. 106; Morley 2003, pp. 33-36 and pp. 66-67; Bibikov 1978; Dauvois 1989, pp. 2-11","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"candidate_only","coordinate_basis":"Ukraine country anchor retained for the oldest circulating literature claim; Gregor gives no site or object, and Mezin/Mesin is only a possible attractor, not a confirmed bullroarer.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Ukraine's Ice Age music was beaten, not whirled: at Mezin, six mammoth bones some 20,000 years old were struck with beaters, ivory rattles beside them — a \"Stone Age orchestra\" of percussion. The secure Paleolithic bullroarers are French: incised, ochre-stained reindeer-antler rhombes from Solutrean and Magdalenian sites such as La Roche de Birol at Lalinde, Lespugue and Laugerie Basse, several reconstructed and shown to hum when whirled. Older still, French archaeomusicologists place the first bullroarers in the Pavlovian of Gravettian Moravia, 22,000 to 25,000 years ago. The Ukrainian roarer of 17,000 B.C. lives in one uncited line of Thomas Gregor's 1985 book on the Amazonian Mehinaku, and in everything that has copied it since.","pull_quote":"Today we know that the bullroarer is a very ancient object, specimens from France (13,000 B.C.) and the Ukraine (17,000 B.C.) dating back well into the Paleolithic period.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Gregor 1985, Anxious Pleasures: The Sexual Lives of an Amazonian People, p. 106","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":true,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"claim","date_display":"c. 17,000 BC","date_qualification":"Gregor's 1985 figure.","date_basis":"disputed_claim","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"gregor1985_ukraine_oldest_claim, Gregor 1985 p. 106","sources":[{"citation":"Thomas Gregor, Anxious Pleasures: The Sexual Lives of an Amazonian People (Chicago, 1985), p. 106; Iain Morley, The Evolutionary Origins and Archaeology of Music (PhD diss., Cambridge, 2003), pp. 33-36, 66-67; S. Bibikov, 'A Stone Age Orchestra' (1978); M. Dauvois, 'Son et musique paléolithiques,' Les Dossiers d'Archéologie 142 (1989): 2-11","url":"https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo25967220.html","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260206004615/https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo25967220.html"}],"source_citations":"Thomas Gregor, Anxious Pleasures: The Sexual Lives of an Amazonian People (Chicago, 1985), p. 106; Iain Morley, The Evolutionary Origins and Archaeology of Music (PhD diss., Cambridge, 2003), pp. 33-36, 66-67; S. Bibikov, 'A Stone Age Orchestra' (1978); M. Dauvois, 'Son et musique paléolithiques,' Les Dossiers d'Archéologie 142 (1989): 2-11","source_display":"Thomas Gregor, Anxious Pleasures: The Sexual Lives of an Amazonian People (Chicago, 1985), p. 106; Iain Morley, The Evolutionary Origins and Archaeology of Music (PhD diss., Cambridge, 2003), pp. 33-36, 66-67; S. Bibikov, 'A Stone Age Orchestra' (1978); M. Dauvois, 'Son et musique paléolithiques,' Les Dossiers d'Archéologie 142 (1989): 2-11","date_citation_display":"Gregor 1985 p. 106","object_display":"","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"secondary catalog","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"ukraine paleolithic","display_name":"Ukraine's phantom oldest bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/POLIKARPOVICH1941-001_03-mae5298-2850-photo-clean.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/POLIKARPOVICH1941-001_03-mae5298-2850-photo-clean_thumb.jpg","credit":"Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), RAS, MAE 5298-2850; excavated by K. M. Polikarpovich, Eliseevichi 1, 1935","license":"© MAE RAN (Kunstkamera), all rights reserved; museum online-collection image rehosted for non-commercial research reference","source_page":"http://collection.kunstkamera.ru/entity/OBJECT/271906","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Engraved mammoth-ivory plaque, Eliseevichi","pool_id":"auto-POLIKARPOVICH1941-001_03-mae5298-2850-photo-clean"},"slug":"gregor1985-001-ukraine-paleolithic-claim"}