Talk:Divje Babe flute

Neutrality

Sorry, but I'm very suspicious of the risk that this article, being largely written by a strong proponent of the flute interpretation, gives undue weight to that interpretation. For instance, Summary of probability analysis isn't a summary - it's an extensive exposition of the contents of one 'pro' paper, where the 'anti' papers get a small paragraph each.

See also Wikipedia:Autobiography: "Creating or editing an article about yourself, your business, your publications, or any of your own achievements is strongly discouraged". Tearlach 18:51, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

--

As we wrote above: We thought articles by scholars about their work was permitted. Finding out we were wrong, we took Fink's data and rewrote the article. We removed every partisan remark Fink had in it, and relied only on factual content. We gave full weight to his critics by making sure we didn't "load" the dice against them. We could have written several sentences of formulas and math, but we wanted to make this analysis understandable to at least highschool students as well as other scholars. We can assure you that ALL the literature available on the subject is in our possession, studied and all the quotes and references are accurate. Furthermore, the "summary" is still far shorter than the mathematical set-up and discussion that can be located on our musicolgy website as well as in the "Studies In Music Archaeology III" conference proceedings.

The publisher of those proceedings is a noted publisher of world archaeology papers and international gatherings of scholars for years. They invited Fink to rebut those who believed the bone was made by accident.

What exactly do you want? Is your suspicion founded on any specifics we can rectify? We'll comply to whatever you require to feel assured. Give us a word limit if we're too wordy for you. But we cannot quote the entirelty of the critics of Fink's views or their illustrations without infringing their copyrights. (BTW, one of "their" illustration ideas was "borrowed" without credit or permission from Fink's book, which we proved at http://www.greenwych.ca/paypiper.htm ) If I was you, I'd be suspicious of them, not us.

Shouldn't it be up to them to submit their work, or edit what we wrote if it is wrong or biased. Who else do you expect will write about this topic you say is worth an article?

Fink has written reams about the matter since 1997, been published world-wide about it, including covers of magazines and journals: see http://www.greenwych.ca/reviews.htm. Fink served as a juror for Nature journal on ancient music, and is qualified. The others have retreated into silence after having written probably no more than 40 pages on the subject taken all together. Their earlier reputations carry the day for them, but their silence on the issues about the bone that to this day they refuse to address should not weigh more than those who do address the issues, we would hope. Finally, here's a quote that may help allay your suspicions from the editor, along with others, of the anthology published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press in 2000 "On the Origins of Music."

Bjorn Merker wrote a few years ago in a letter to Fink:

Bob:

...I have not seen your argument against d'Errico - I guess that's the publication in Antiquity arguing against the "flute" on the basis of thousands of bones, some with holes in them, yes?

I read it and was appalled at the bias that pervaded their write-up (and wrote Turk about it). Their bone collection convinced me in favor of Turk, because the one thing they maintain studious silence about is the linear arrangement of the holes - they do not have a single bone among those thousands which comes even close to the striking linear alignment of Turk's holes (I gather from what you say that this is part of your argument against them), and not to discuss this central and crucial issue is just bad scholarship and bad science.

But {there are} academic theories about the status of Neanderthals...at stake, and so they fight with the fury of theologians... The strange thing about science is that it progresses despite the biasses of its practitioners, but that can be a long process in which lives are ruined along the way....

B.M. 1/9/2000 Sweden

All you need do is check out the links we provided to know we are not falsifying anything. If the facts we are posting seem to make the critics look wrong to you, it would seem to us that the truth of the facts are alll that need confirming. Let the chips fall where they may if Fink's critics still look wrong, wouldn't you agree? Read the last paragraph of the article quoting Nowell and Chase, who are Fink's critics. They raise the importance of "probability."

Did we make a mistake in the math? Do you want a photo instead of a drawing of the object? Tell us how the story of this debate gets told in Wikipedia, please?

Best wishes, For Greenwich Publ.,

Terry Geebe and others volunteers here. [email protected]

---

Okay.

We have gotten more help, I'm not a great writer anyway -- and we very considerably reduced the material on the probability analysis.

It's not our fault that Nowell, Chase, d'Errico et al, all wrote very little in the past seven years on the matter. About half of what they published are photographs and drawings, and almost all of the photos are of other bones and flutes, rather than of the Divje Babe flute. The ones that were relevant were placed in the Antiquity article by d'Errico to show that there are single or perhaps two holes bitten in some bones only by carnivores -- which looked something like the circular holes in Divje Babe. After 4 short pages of that, everyone gets the point, and no one denies the holes look alike anyway.

The big violation of logic for Prof. Blackwell, Ivan Turk et al, and all those who search for answers, is that d'Errico published without ever personally examining the Divje Babe bone -- unless Professor Turk is a liar. He did look at it later, but long after publishing. And d'Errico concluded that if the holes look alike, then the "flute's" circular holes must be made by chance bites too. Really. A reverse conclusion could be made with just as much logic, wouldn't you think? -- that the bones d'Errico saw maybe were not made by carnivores after all, because the holes Neanderthals made in the Divje Babe flute looked like HIS collection of bones-holes? I've learned a lot about this stuff in the past few days that surprises me.

As for Nowell, most of her and Chase's scant several pages of text midst pics of other bones and flutes said *nothing* that Fink, Turk, Blackwell, Otte and many others, would disagree with anyway! So what's to quote from them?

So should we make up stuff to quote "equal amounts" of it from them? -- Or suppress our own views to match their silence and lack of inquiry? Many people are "mathophobes" -- so when one writes math in the form of words so it's easier to understand, one must use lots more words. But -- we edited them down. Hope it's good enough to save the article. But "probability" IS the issue, and someone did publiush a study we want read. Why else would anyone write anything?

There is no one else who follows this matter who has the intimate familiarity with all the literature that all the participants have. So either one of the debating participants writes the article, or NO ONE will. So do you want it or not? This issue may turn out very important in the history of human evolution.

You decide if you want a blank Divje page. The critics of Turk have withdrawn from the issue for years because perhaps they realize they made a mistake and haven't the moxy to face up to the math they should have done themselves. But why should research findings be quashed because they won't deal with them? Is that how they silence us -- with no ideas offered at all?

As to fact, almost every significant claim written there is referenced to some reputable source, book, webpage, comment, or testable reasoning (like the math). If there is still unfairness suspected -- one has to find something specific to offer as to what's unfair now. We don't think any paragraph has any factual errors in it.

  Regards, 
  Sorry for the wordiness, but I'd hate to see our 
  many hours of work go dowen the tubes.
  For Greenwich,
  Terry

I'm a trifle busy at the moment, but can get on to some specifics next week. But the main problem is that it's just a bad dynamic, proven many times over here, to have a topic written by a person or company with an investment in promoting one viewpoint. Even with the best of intentions, people are rotten at writing about their own (figurative) babies objectively.

I suggest, again, following the advice of Wikipedia:Autobiography#Creating an article about yourself. The topic exists - sooner or later others will edit it. The advice at Wikipedia:Spam#How not to be a spammer is also helpful. Tearlach 11:58, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

--

Thanks for the reply. Terry has gone back home now, but a few of us remain and have learned a little about how your system works. We are likely to close down as publishers when our remaining stock sells out (not much money in this niche publishing area any more). We have nothing to gain or sell using Wikipedia. We only want the literature that exists to be summarized accurately and understandably.

We await any specifics in your concerns as we dearly wish to be as fair as possible, and will act on your suggestions. We can supply reputable verification for virtually any item that concerns you. Some people are searching the literature for more material to provide from those views you feel did not get enough exposure. Everything in this subject's literature (books from Turk & Fink, but very little from their critics) is in writing, and so accuracy can be assured by using participant's own words. We will guard against "picking & choosing" or quoting out of context, but we hope the other participants producing the literature involved will edit and contribute more, themselves.

At present there are 3,210 words in the whole article. The "pro-flute" material has 33% of the article, mostly direct quotes, and their sources. The "Carnivore-Origin" view is now greater with 43% of the article -- almost all direct quotes from the literature and their sources. Descriptive or "agreed upon material," without dispute, takes up 24%.

Individuals: Nowell and Chase are 12%, and d'Errico et al occupy 31% of the article, directly quoting their published work & soureces. Fink has 16% and Turk and other miscellaneous "pro-flute" views use 17% of the article, describing or direct-quoting from their published work.

If you have no further specific items of non-neutrality, please remove your tag?

-- Thank you for your time and reply -- Candace

I sketched a note or two, but on reflection, the specifics aren't important. You're not grasping the central issue: the very fact of your producing the bulk of the article is problematical.

Read Wikipedia:Autobiography#Creating an article about yourself again.

"Creating or editing an article about yourself, your business, your publications, or any of your own achievements is strongly discouraged ... Similar principles apply to articles about works that you are primarily responsible for — the company you run, the website you started, the book you wrote; any possible conflict of interest".

Which bit of that don't you understand? I'm taking a break (new job), and am leaving it to Cleanup. Tearlach 01:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

To Tearlach: Since you seem to be addressing me (Bob Fink), I'll respond personally.

I didn't create the "Divje_Babe" page. The page was already there, but mostly empty, when I came on the scene. And, the article is not about myself, my business, my accomplishments, my publications or my books nor about Greenwich or its supporters. The article is about the Divje Babe bone, and the pros and cons in the published, verifiable debate about whether it is an artifact or an accident. There is no other issue about this find.

Which bit of that don't you understand? After others have removed and changed my words (as originally supplied by me before I learned that writing about one's own POV was not encouraged, and so I handed it over to others), the article is no longer fully my edits nor MY words. It presents all the viewpoints that exist.

Again: Which bit of that don't you undertsand? Would you actually read the article, please? There was compliance with your concerns. In spades. Or is that irrelevant, too, and only I am now the excuse for your incomprehensible insistence on keeping a dispute? A dispute which now appears permanent and rigid despite the guidelines (quoted below).

Here, in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:NPOV_dispute#Removing_NPOV_dispute_notices it says: "Text already in the guidelines says:

"Everyone can agree that marking an article as having an NPOV dispute is a temporary measure, and should be followed up by actual contributions to the article in order to put it in such a state that people agree that it is neutral. " So, Tearlach, this was done, or attempted, but now you say "the specifics [and the changes] aren't important" for judging whether neutrality has been acheived? Are you even following Wiki's own guidelines? You seem to be putting on blinders on this issue, pushing a temporary measure into an eternal POV of your own.

A question that you really, really must answer: Would you label all of the authors listed in this topic's literature -- shown in "References" and "Further Reading" sections -- as "problematical" -- not proper to have access or edits, or correcting or challenging facts in the article or in the literature? Or do you find I am the only problem?? If so, why? If you think the other POV should write it, you should know this: When the editors of the Studies in Music Archaeology III conference book invited me to write a rebuttal article, Nowell et al, with a written attack against my views planned in that same book, attempted to quash my article and censor my POV. But they failed to make it one-sided, and I remain a legitimate part of the scholarly literature on this issue. Do you deny that I am, or what? BTW, I don't believe in censorship. For proof, see [news clipping]. (A case which I eventually won).

I don't think anybody from the other POV would even include me if they wrote the article in Wikipedia. But if you think none of the authors qualify, then who is left that you think can or should write it? Should the writer be someone who doesn't care enough about it to even have a POV, or who is not part of the existing literature or expert in the topic? Of course. How stupid of me! What was I thinking? And that person just came in the door. "Here I am, Bob. I have a neutral view. I think the flute is an accident, rather than made to be a flute, but I think it was made to be a flute and not an accident."

At the Wiki URL about neutrality below, it says about tags: " The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please view the article's talk page. Use this when the bulk of an article is OK, but a single section appears not to be NPOV. You should explain what's wrong with the section on the talk page." Quoted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPOV_dispute#How_can_neutrality_be_achieved.3F

You said "too long.' So we made it much shorter. But you now offer NO further method nor means for achieving neutrality except now your solution is "Bob Fink, get lost." (And bite the newcomer.) Just because you're afraid of a slanted writing doesn't mean that has happened. Does it?

Another Wiki URL says Wikipedia:Autobiography#Creating_an_article_about_yourself: "Facts, retellings of events, and clarifications which you may wish to have added to an article about yourself must be verifiable." That seems to say I am not prohibited from edits or participation and that verifiable matereial can be allowed about oneself. But again, I repeat:This article now is not about myself. Get it? It is about the debate that exists in reality, and exists in the official, scholarly, reputable, and published literature from many people (which happens to include me in fact). Would you remove & hide me out of sight and make the literary record stilted, dishonest and incomplete? It is about the bone they found!

Like it or not, I am a major contributer to the reputably published record -- in some of the same journals and books and arena as the opposing POV. And after the changes made to Divje_Babe, it is downright false to still say the "bulk" of it is by me! Certainly even you yourself have influenced those changes. Again: Which part of that don't you undertsand? Do you even bother to read the remarks offered here?

The unique, nice thing about arithmetic is that there are no shades of grey: Even the most hideously biased ego-maniac author who is fanatically "pushing" his own self-interested POV, can say: "2+2=4" exactly the same way a "neutral" author would do that. Arithmetic is either right -- or it's wrong. The author is irrelevant. There is no way for a math example (the article's "probability analysis") to be "not-neutral" or unfair to any other POV. If it shows another POV may be mistaken, that is not the same thing as "unfair" -- Is it? And do you deny it's possible that such an author is capable (even though holding his/her nose) to quote accurately [from other POVs] things he/she doesn't agree with, and thus -- be fair?

In conclusion, let me point out that Leon Trotsky wrote the The Russian Revolution -- a major classic, definitive work of history recognized by any literary standard of objectivity -- despite himself being a player in the events (A Wiki_Sin, without doubt). That kind of thing (someone being fairly objective) happens sometimes, even if not in your experience. Your Wiki_fetish about it should be mellowed -- otherwise you'll make it a nightmare for scholars (as my experience with you has been for me) to write for Wikipedia and improve its reliability -- i.e., Wiki's loss.

Well, hit and run -- go "missing in action" -- after refusing to offer any specific argument to justify continuing your attachment to your tag on neutrality. If it hadn't been for you, the article might not have been improved and made as even-handed as it is now. But if it wasn't for you, it would also not still be closed-mindedly disputed as "unfair." I'll be thinking twice before I ever have more to do with wikipedia. It's vision looks far shallower now.

Bob Fink

Breach of Wikipedia:Autobiography

I'm tired of being treated as the villain for defending a basic Wikipedia guideline. The latest edition of Wikipedia:Autobiography is even clearer now:

Avoid writing or editing articles about yourself, since we all find objectivity especially difficult when we ourselves are concerned. Such articles frequently violate neutrality, verifiability, and notability guidelines. Contribute on the talk page instead.

You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved. This applies to articles about you, your achievements, your business, your publications, your website, and any other possible conflict of interest.

Wikipedia has gone through many prolonged disputes about the significance, factual accuracy, and neutrality of such articles, including one about Jimmy Wales himself [2]. Refraining from such editing is therefore important in maintaining Wikipedia's neutral stance and in avoiding the appearance of POV-pushing.

You can bluster all you like: Bob Fink and/or Bob Fink's publisher should not be the maintainer and contributor of an article primarily about Bob Fink's work. Tearlach 16:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Hear, hear! The whole article needs to be cleaned up to conform to Wikipedia style, but more importantly we need some other points of view. —Keenan Pepper 16:54, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[NOTE: The above two posts appear to have been entered here when they likely were meant to be placed on the talk page for the Bob Fink page while its deletion was debated. The "history" of the article indicates POV issues are not relevant ( ("19:24, 2 February 2006 Rdos (Talk | contribs) (POV no longer relevant)" ), as the several points of views of other writers regarding this archaeological bone-find were already amply presented. Nor was this page ever "primarily" about any individual's biography and works.]

Please sign your posts on talk pages per Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks! Hyacinth 03:42, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Unencyclopedic tag

I've tagged the article as unencyclopedic. This reads like a review of research, not an encyclopedia article. In my opinion the article could be about 1/4 its current length by trimming most of the disputed material. And I find the above discussion disturbing on a number of levels. --Craig Stuntz 14:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

This notation appeared in the History:

"15:58, 14 April 2006 Kjkolb (Talk | contribs) (replaced tags with a general cleanup tag, the unencyclopedic tag is for articles whose topic is unencyclopedic, not content)"

Mistake in probability calculation ?

The probability calculation states "there are 10 locations around the bone for each hole to be located, therefore there are 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 possibilies". I think this is a mistake, since the first hole can always considered to be "lined up" (with itself, since the first hole defines the line). Therefore there are 10 x 10 x 10 possibilies, for the remaining three holes, giving a figure of 1,000 and not 10,000 as stated. -- salsaman.

You are right except there are limitations imposed on the set-up of the problem. The idea of the term "flute-like" is assumed here to be defined as being all 4 holes lined-up along the axis of the tube (or femur). If the femur was a true symmetrical cylinder, then the line-up could be rotated as a whole and produce the same "flute-like" condition in other locations on the tube. Those would be subtractable as you indicate. But the location of a mouthpiece (never found) or an add-on mouthpiece, would inhibit the ability to rotate any of the femur's hole arrangements arbitrarily anywhere on the circumfrence of the bone (or tube). So, by this set-up, the first hole must be included in the calculation (as would the plums, cherries, etc., for a gambling machine's results appearing in its similarly "fixed" location provided by the machine's windows), showing how many ways the four holes (or plums, cherries, or whatever) can be not lined up, or not be "flute-like."

Further, it seems like you're saying that two people "standing side by side" could be said, by some mental acrobatics, to still be doing so even if there is only one one person present. To "line up" hole(s) on a given axis requires two or more of them in that set-up.

In any event, being a rough calculation designed only to find the general order of magnitude of the odds, it isn't worth the refinement of subtracting the much smaller number of arrangements that could be repetitive. That matter loses significance because the results remain astronomically improbable to occur by chance regardless which calculation is used.

Lastly, not included are the additional improbabilities of the 4 holes being approximately the same diameters, and a diameter size coverable by finger-tips, as are holes in most simple flutes. Calculating (if even possible to do) the many other hole sizes possible, if they were really randomly created, would make the final improbability odds almost an impossibility. --CN

Two new articles (Fall, 2006) published

An article has appeared by Ivan Turk (who discovered the "flute" object) which describe the results from testing the object using a "multi-slice computer tomographic process," and another separate article appeared in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology (Nov., 2006) by Iain Morley reviewing the taphonomic evidence.

Both articles have been added to the references section.

A few lines have been added in the text to quote the new or significant points made in these two articles that bear upon or update the controversy. -- CN

- - - - -

We have reversed the vandalism. Whether we signed in or not, there ARE further 2006 journal-published materials from BOTH the finders of the object (Turk, et al), and from Morley, a scholar opposing Turk's views, published in the Nov. Oxford Journal of Archaeology. These are listed and a small updating quote from each is added.

The material is NOT added by the authors or anyone related to them. Your reference to "autobiographical rules" in the "history" is an absurdity, as neither author cited or quoted has done the edit.

There is more to come. We have been written to about *all* the latest publications known (from the Paleontology-Anthropogy forum "Palanthsci," and from others) on this object. There are other papers on the matter from Zoltan Horusitzki (France) which will also soon be listed when we finish reading them and formatting the citations.

Do you have some reason for preventing this literature from being known?

Learn to read the article itself, and to abide by the standards of readers' rights to know about new references & sources, and to aid scholarly completeness. Also look into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes .

Removal again of this information and reading references is gross censorship, suppression of information, and/or vandalism, and will be fought to the bitter end if neceesary. -- CN

Rainwarrior's edits Dec 26

Reverted image removal

The image is not repeated elsewhere in the article as claimed in the history. The image shows the match of the bone's holes superimposed over a modern spacing of holes in a simple flute or whistle. Therefore, the justification given for its removal does not exist. No other image visually shows the match. -Bob Fink, 65.255.225.41 15:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know why you claim that this image (the one you restored a link to): [3]

Is different from this image (the one that appears in the article directly below that linkg): Image:Image-Divje04.jpg

But they are clearly the same, making the external link to the former directly prior both confusing and unnecessary. - Rainwarrior 19:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

What "all agreed to"

There are four holes (sometimes called "openings," or "perforations"). It doesn't matter what they are called, a hole, whether made by chance bites or by human agency, are still "holes," if you check your English dictionary.

Therefore the statement removed ("all are agreed" there are four holes, in-line, similar diameters, etc), is a truthful and factual statement, and so there is no reason (so far) for removal of it. What is not agreed is that the end holes were human-made or carnivore-made. But that doesn't change the fact that the end-holes are holes NOR that the nature of the statement removed is factual. Untill a specific reason is provided, I am replacing those statements.

In any event, the recent CT scan of the bone seems to have demonstrated conclusively (unless some rebuttal can be supported) that the holes are indeed all four (3 for sure) made by human agency prior to carnivore action upon the bone. You can find this information in the article along with sources for it.

Further: The removal of the fact that I was invited to write a rebuttal appears totally gratuitous, since the fact has significance regarding that I was considered the logical scholar for presenting the alternative viewpoint (since I didn't attend the conference), and that I was reviewed by Chase and Nowell in their paper at the conference. Removal of that fact is designed to serve what goal? It is being replaced, pending a serious specific reason for removing it. -Bob Fink, 65.255.225.41 15:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

If you don't have a published citation for d'Errico, Chase, and Nowell stating that the bone has four holes in-line, then "all agreed" is not verifiable.

I would like to review the information about the CT scan, but there is no information in it in the article other than it "...has produced results that indicate most or all holes were made before any carnivore damage. The damage had been cited to indicate marrow was present (which attracts carnivores), but the tomography results now challenge that conclusion." The link to Turk's article from your website is broken, and the "Arheoloski vestnik" journal isn't available at any library within driving distance for me at the moment. The only information offered here is that Turk (by his published article) and you (by your statements) find this conclusive. So this reference, while it may have very compelling evidence (but again, not being able to read it myself, I can't evaluate that), does not speak to the opinions of "all".

The fact that you were invited to write a rebuttal is completely gratuitous. I removed it because it has no relevance to your argument. It's ad hominem (or pro hominem in this case?) and not interesting to anyone who is not studying you.

Furthermore the fact that you are using this article to write directly about your own research is very much a conflict of interest, especially given that you have replaced the working link I gave for the d'Errico article which opposes your view with a broken one. That action directly supresses a published opposing viewpoint. (See edit history).

- Rainwarrior 19:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

.

No, it doesn't work that way. The onus is on you to provide quotes and verifications that d'Errico, Nowell, Morley, et al deny the holes are in line, or are equal diameters, etc. You know perfectly well that if one side said the holes matched a scale, were equal diameters and in-line, and that if they didn't agree they'd be squawking to high heaven to express that. Silence connotes condoning, in this case. Can I satisfy you if it said instead: "None of the participants have objected to these observations"? Anyone with eyes can see the line-up & measure the scale spacing, plus their writings are sourced already for this. They know "coincidence" is their conclusion but as it's not seen as a scientific explanation, they don't like to deal with that by mentioning this issue of line-up, etc. Even when asked, they avoid it. Most of the time, anyway.

CT-scan: You are not here to be a censor. You need only to make sure proper verifications/references are provided. In wiki, a statement does not even need to be true (especially if based only on your opinion). As long as there is verification, the statement should stand if relevant. No wiki guidelines requires reference libraries to be within the driving range of Rainwarrior's residence to see if the reference content meets with your approval or agreement. The quotes and references will remain because they provide reputable sources and accurate quotes, unless you can provide better reasons.

I spent $100 for that Arheoloski vestnik 2005 issue of Turk's article and can quote material as you'd like about the CT-scan, but what kind of quotes exactly do you need? I have letters written me by Prof. Blackwell, Zoltan Horusitzky, as well as more quotes from Turk's (also very similar is his paper in L'anthropologie, vol. 110 (3) 2006), if you want. Would that help? I'm not responsible for when temporary Internet links to PDFs and abstracts expire. Turk has no new site, and relies on Prof. Blackwell for communications in the west. I usually copy temporary data to a webpage I create for such material, but then, would you fight that link being cited as it would then be "my" webpage? Catch 22.

Professor Blackwell wrote me this: "Tomography means taking a series of 3d xray slices through the flute to see how the holes are shaped in all directions. This basically shows that the holes don't have the shape that they should if they were made by teeth biting down on the bone. No other natural phenomena can explain them, so they had to be shaped by humans."

The image you removed is not a repeat of any other. It shows what no other shows: The match to a unique modern scale spacing sequence. Not being a "repeat," the justification for its removal disappears. So it'll remain pending a better reason for removal.

On the "Fink was invited" comment, you wrote: "I removed it because it has no relevance to your argument. It's ad hominem (or pro hominem in this case)...and not interesting to anyone who is not studying you." But: I notice you added my name as the source of an image. But in that case why doesn't your own statement also apply there as well? Namely: That my name being added is gratuitous and "has no relevance to the argument."? Yet you added it. To be "pro hominem"? Anyway, people are usually interested in the facts surrounding the players as well as the arguments, and it's most unusual that a non-archaeologist would be considered the proper scholar to ask for a rebuttal to one of the world's leading archaeologists, even though I didn't attend the archaeology conference. That rarely happens, and at least bears upon the relevance of the argument presented. Nevertheless, I won't fight you on that phrase. Remove it as you wish, although your reasoning for it is inconsistent, as noted.

When you write: "Furthermore the fact that you are using this article to write directly about your own research...." that is not a "fact" at all. Directly you claim? False. You suffer from a severe loss of reality concerning the authors of this article (read the whole talk page). You also have an oversimplified view of the wiki guidelines, when in fact they provide various exceptions to your hard-and-fast view of the rules. I am allowed at least to revert vandalism, make or correct sources, citations, references, etc. Furthermore, the d'Errico et al quote is the entirety of the PDF source now broken. It's not my fault the link is now broken, but the journals involved only make them free for limited times. Then you have to buy the article. Or cite the title, which is sufficient for Wiki, if not you. If you could still reach that link, it would be exactly the same text as quoted in the article. There was nothing left out regarding Divje Babe.

I apologize that your new link to d'Errico was broken by my revert. Maybe you shouldn't be so gung-ho to revert my edits without adequate discussion? I will search again for the workable link in history, and replace it -- or you can replace it sooner if you like. I want the link to work as much as you do. Bob Fink, 65.255.225.42 04:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The "gung ho" reversion was yours. I made edits to fix a link, improve formatting (large indents do not fit small screens very well), improve clarity, and reduce POV. You then made the summary reversion of all of these edits after only evaluating a few of them.

Silence is not agreement. That's ludicrous. However, the very d'Errico article you have now twice broken the link for which I had endeavoured to restore is not silent about the number of holes. It states that there are "two or possibly three perforations on the suggested flute" (pg 37). At no point does it acknowledge a fourth hole (this is the same as denying the existance of such a fourth hole). He goes on to say "the object could never have been playable as its epiphyses were not completely opened" (same page).

In another cited document (Morley, 2006) writes "whilst there remain only two complete holes in the bone, commentators have frequently asserted that there may have originally been three, four, or even five holes made in the bone" (pg 48) indicating very directly here that the number of holes in the bone are IN DISPUTE. "All agreed" is untrue by this statement and by d'Errico's. Unless you have a citation that says that d'Errico, Chase, and Nowell all have agreed that there were four holes in this artifact. Silence can mean many things, but it is not automatically assumed to be agreement.

Even Turk, according to Morley, believes that "the damage at the ends of the femure, including the semi-circular hole damage, is consistent with carnivore damage...this, in all probability, leaves in under question only the agency responsible for the two complete holes in the bone." (pg 48)

The image that I attributed to you numbering the holes I attributed to you because you made it, and it is your work that asserts these four holes. And the written statement "Although just looking at the flute shows that it looks virtually identical to any other flute from prehistoric times" is completely POV. If it is true, the image itself will suffice. The reader need not be insulted with the assertion that "this picture makes it obvious"; the reader can think for himself. However, the identification of the holes is clearly part of YOUR argument, and not of d'Errico's, not of Chase and Nowell's, and not of Turks, and this is why I attributed it to you.

You have obviously NOT looked at the image link I removed, because everything I have said about it is completely true. The VERY SAME image appears INLINE in the article DIRECTLY BELOW the link. I can't fathom why you say different, but from the way you reverted my entire edit without addressing most of it, I must assume that you still haven't looked at it with care. Take a look.

As for myself not being able to get to the article you're citing, I'm not mentioning that for your benefit. I'm mentioning it because if it is possible for a third party to look this up, I would much appreciate the verification. I simply can't take your word for it, because I think you've got a conflict of interest in this article.

- Rainwarrior 06:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

To Rainwarrior: FYI: Turk numbered the holes 1 to 4, and in his 2005 CT-scan article, p. 11, has a picture of the holes with numbers 1 to 5 (including the reputed "thumbhole"). An alternative numbering appears on p. 17 numbered 1 to 3. I did not invent the numbers used in the image you removed. Your claim that this numbering is my view of the matter, is based on the lack of your having the complete literature, which is not my fault. But you use that lack against me and to edit badly.

Also, since I am a player in the world debate on this bone, you say that makes you conclude COI on my part, existing in reality in some significant way even though you haven't a shred of evidence in all the thousands of words I have already written here or anywhere than I have EVER misquoted or misrepresented any facts. If so, NAME THE SPECIFICS or stop accusing me falsely!!! That violation of standards of decency reveals your bias against me to justify your edits and to be willing to ignore my facts and push ahead. Along with your lack of knowing the literature inside-&-out, your behavior toward me shows an admitted lack of good faith with no specific or stated reason for it other than your subjective unfounded suspicions.

FYI-2: D'Errico (on p. 69 of his Antiquity March 1998 article) lists all the same items and more that I list in the article that could show "an anthropic origin" of the 4 holes. D'Errico uses these words regarding the holes: "Aligned; finger sized; regular round shape; four (holes); absence of spongy bone (marrow)," and more. He doesn't dispute these observations in the paper, but ignores or interprets them as not "convincing" enough to conclude an anthropic origin. Further, on p. 77, he refers to one of the incomplete end holes as the "distal hole." Note -- he uses the word "hole" for the end hole! So again, it is not true to claim it's me that is forcing the word "hole" onto those openings. He also refers to the end holes as notches, perforations, and sometimes: holes.

FYI-3: Morely (p.319 in the Oxford journal 2006) has also numbered the holes from 1 to 5, and 1-4 on the one side. Morely wrote (p. 321): ''However, as outlined below, as far as Turk et al. (1997) are concerned, the damage at the ends of the femur, including the semi-circular hole damage, is consistent with carnivore damage.... This, in all probability, leaves under question only the agency responsible for the two complete holes in the bone." In this quote it is clear that all the holes are called "holes." The end hole is called a "semi-circular hole." See it? The ONLY dispute is how they were made, not that they were holes or complete holes or some other name. You seem to fetishistically think that the use of the word "hole" means also accepting the human origin viewpoint. WHY?? When Morley says there are only "two" holes, you well know -- or will, if you read the article carefully -- that he always means there are only two holes from the four (or five) holes which may be difficult to show have a carnivore origin. The rest he states are "almost certainly" (p. 324) carnivore-made. For Morley it is like a "blue" or "azure" issue -- not at all significant, regarding the colour of the sky. As for the line-up, Morley writes on p. 324 that the line-up of the holes becomes less improbable if two of the "semi-circular (end) holes" were never human-made holes. While I think that is a mathematically impossible statement to make, nonetheless, he ADMITS there is a "line up." See it?

FYI-4: Nowell & Chase, in their paper in Studies in Music Arcaeology III p. 69 through 74, refer to the end holes as "partial holes," again -- using the word "holes." On p. 74, they write: "There is little dispute about the observations that have been made on the specimen itself. There are, however, disagreements about the interpretation of these observations." Her use of photographs and an illustration she & Chase borrowed from my paper (showing the match in this article between the old bone and modern scale-holes) also shows her agreement to the alignment, size and shape of the holes.

You wrote earlier: "If you don't have a published citation for d'Errico, Chase, and Nowell stating that the bone has four holes in-line, then "all agreed" is not verifiable. " Remember that? Do you still hold to that? ...Well, I have now cited d'Errico et al, Morley, and Nowell & Chase all agreeing to the list of observations that exist in the article. So, three questions for you:

1. Despite the evidence now presented, will you still insist on your edit and in denying, despite these citations, that "all agree" on those observations? If so WHY??? Or will you accept at least wording to the effect that "no one objects to those observations" as a compromise?

2. Just in case you're actually able to be specific: What exactly is it about the CT-scan article that you "cannot take my word" for? That it even exists? Or that I quoted accurately from it? Explain please.

3. What is your definition of the word "hole?" Can it mean an opening made by carnivores? Webster says yes ("an opening in anything; break, gap, tear"). What do you say it means in the article (and why)? --B.F. 65.255.225.52 05:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I think this reply is in the wrong section. (Edit: I have moved it to the appropriate place.) It would be helpful to all involved in this debate if you took a little more care with the formatting of your talk page edits. It is more difficult to read when you do this, and hinders the progress of the discussion.

I wasn't objecting specifically to the use of the word "hole", but rather the skew involved in the words used. Matters of bias are difficult to articulate, and you have (in this place and in our other argument) made lengthy attacks on specific words which I meant to stand for a more general issue than the word itself. You attacked my edits which involved the word "hole", and I responded by talking about holes, but I can see now that this didn't really get to my point; but I couldn't really predict how you were going to interpret my argument.

My issue is not really with the word "hole", but the sentence in which it was used--with the implications of the way you present it. If we write simply "it is undisputed that there are four holes, lined up" on this artifact, this statement leaves out that many of the participants believe that the incomplete holes at the broken ends of the artifact could not ever be conclusively demonstarted to be man-made. Even if the two complete holes are man made, if it is held that the incomplete holes are not, "lined up" is not relevant. There is no need for Nowell, d'Errico, or whomever to respond specifically to that claim if it's a non-issue to them. As I said earlier, silence is not agreement. I really wish you would stop asserting this.

I object to the use of the word hole in the context it was used, and made the edit to reduce the bias inherent in that wording. In fact, I think this presentation of four points like this, completely abstracted from the context upon which they may be "agreed" upon is completely biased toward your particular interpretation of the object's origin. "Nearly all circular" is very strange, given that of the two supposed end holes one has only half of its circumference intact ("nearly" circular?) and the other even less. A statement like "the two complete holes are nearly circular" in its place would be much more accurate, at least. I also think "like a flute" is a loaded statement. The wording of this whole passage is being used to imply things that are omitted. If a reader does not carefully review the entire article (and given its sorry state, that is quite likely), he might easily mistake these implication for undisputed truth (especially with words like "not disputed by participants in the debate").

You also took issue with the minor change I made at Tonality removing the unqualified reference to the "do-re-mi" scale, which is part of the same issue. (I left a small response there, but I am making the same point more clearly here.)

Yes, at Trio theory I put your name to it because the article was intended to be about your work, which at the time the article Musical acoustics claimed was referred to as "trio theory". At present the goal of the article is left very nebulous due to your belief that the article should be about what the subject of your work is about, rather than about your work.

Here, though, I have added attributions to you, because when an issue is in debate, it is completely appropriate to identify the sources of an argument. To say "Bob Fink believes this is a man-made flute," is completely neutral. To say "This is a man-made flute," is not. (This is just an example.) Where claims are controversial the matter of which side the controversial statement is coming from is very important. I don't know why you think that attributing your claims to you somehow downgrades their importance, but this is not my intent. My intent is to make the nature of the dispute clearer.

- Rainwarrior 09:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

    Rainwarrior comment Copied from Talk:Tonality 
    You can attack the word "hole", but the real issue is that the status of the object is clearly in debate, and
    my edits make this clear. The assertion that it is diatonic isn't even really the major problem, it is the
    implications of it; For the presence of the diatonic scale (which is contested by Chase and Nowell,
    whether or not you think you have a counter-argument) to be relevant we must already assume that it IS a
    flute, and that it IS man-made. Both of these ideas are very much disputed, and to say that its holes match
    the diatonic scale without qualification is directly misleading. Again, the argument is at Divje Babe, and
    not here. - Rainwarrior 09:22, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

To Rainwarrier Go to the trouble to get the literature and study it accurately so that you can stop inaccurate edits here (which you always defend to the death once made). I wasted my time and provided you quotes and sources for the "agreed by all" list. I knew your response would avoid commenting directly on them and change the subject to suit your "create-endless-dispute" syndrome. When do I get direct & specific answers to the 3 specific questions I asked you above? What is your comment on the quote from Nowell & Chase: "There is little dispute about the observations that have been made on the specimen itself." --Is she wrong or right? ...B.F. 65.255.225.51 04:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't comment directly on them because I don't think the hole argument is a useful one. I let you draw me into a debate about holes, but the edit I made was about POV, not holes specifically. "Hole" was just one of the words used. I would call it a mistake on my part that I wasn't able to explain this properly before you decided to spend a lot of time fussing about who said "hole" where and in what documents.

The mistake is due to the misleading nature of the words that I object to. To say there are undisputably four holes in-line implies indirectly that the same agent created all of them. Reading it, and feeling this implication, I told you that this information was in debate. No, you're right, everyone's talked about the four possible holes, etc. etc., but many only as an acknowledgement of a possibility. To say it the way it is said in the article is confusing language, and there is no good reason to be doing this. Do you think saying "it is agreed by all parties that there are four holes in line" is an unbiased and straightforward representation of the facts? I don't. It's misleading. I said in my last reply that saying "two complete holes, and two possible holes suggesed by notches in the end of the bone" would be completely acceptable in its place.

So, so far this was mainly a reiteration of my previous reply. It answers your question 1. I'm not even sure what kind of answer you want to question 2 anyway (so I didn't answer it before, but I'll try now). I said that I'd like to look at that article, and will do so when I can, but I have not yet made any comment on the content of that article which I haven't read. All I've said is that I can't do so at this moment. I don't really want you to start quoting the article at me, I'm in no position to dispute any of it (and I haven't as of yet). What I mean that I won't take your word for it is that I find you have a very biased way of explaining things, and I'd rather hear comments on it from a party that isn't directly involved with one side or other of the debate. This isn't intended as an insult, but I really don't find the way you present information to be helpful; if not even for the bias, the constant personal attacks and insinuations really make it really hard to get anything useful out of the things you say to me.

Question 3 I thought was mostly rhetorical. My last reply and this one have both addressed what I think is implied by the sentences that speak of four holes, so I think that much has already been answered (twice now). As for the definition of the word hole, the dictionary definition is fine. I've already said it's not the word that I mind, it's the POV.

If you think you're wasting your time on this argument, well, you may very well be. I think the direction of your argument about who calls what a hole and when wasn't very useful to anybody. Consider this: even if you were wrong about it (which you aren't, but hypothetically), if the other people really did object to calling those things holes; so what? Is your probability argument suddenly invalid? I don't think this really helps or hinders it at all. The edits I made to this change were extremely minor, addressing clarity. It should be clear what exactly is in dispute about this artifact. It should be explicit what four-holes-in-line is referring to, not implied. This is important to me. Is it more important to you that you be able to claim unqualified that "everyone agrees that there are four holes in line"? - Rainwarrior 05:51, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Major cleanup needed

This article is inappropriate for an encyclopedia as it presently stands. For starters, the title is Divje Babe but the article focuses exclusively on one item found there, and does not discuss the site. It's still too long, it's full of conflicts of interest, he-said/she-said back-and-forth which is interesting only to people directly involved in the debate, and collections of barely-formatted data. There needs to be more information about the site in general. Most of the discussion about the flute-like object needs to be on whichever facts are agreed upon by everyone, because Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought, a soapbox, or an indiscriminate collection of information. Save debate for the journals, please. The discussion of the debate over whether or not Bob Fink's theories are correct should simply acknowledge that the dispute exists, not try to resolve it.

Above all we must remember we are writing an encyclopedia here, and keep the articles suitable for that format. I have no objection to scientific journals, polemics, or blogs -- in fact I like all of them -- but I don't believe those styles of writing are appropriate for Wikipedia. We need to keep our articles accessible and appropriate for the same audience served by paper encyclopedias.

I'm willing to take on some of the effort of revising the article, but given the high number of reverts here I want to make sure that if I do put in that time that I won't be setting off yet another revert war. So if anyone objects to the idea of a significant revision please say so now.

--Craig Stuntz 14:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply to Craig

I would be interested in seeing a much shorter article and welcome a serious re-write focussing on the betterment of the article and its information. In fact, since this one that was posted (not written by me, as the earlier discussion in this talk page shows), the newer 2006 material (Turk & Morley and possibly Horuistzky) may make many parts of the article obsolete, and they can be cut. (Nowell & Chase may be making a new paper soon.) The debate though, is still not resolved, and the areas of agreement are minimal, since one view holds it to be an artifact, another holds it to be an accident. That's like flat-earth vs spherical earth -- what are the areas of agreement there? :O) Both Nowell and myself agree that the issue of probability is of importance.

Personally, I always wanted the page to be called "Neanderthal Flute," but that title was never accepted at the time, and writers here were told to use Divje Babe which already existed as a stub. As a result, there was a shorter version somewhere on this computer made a while back, which I can post on Talk, and perhaps we can work together on it? Or have I become too demonized to deal with?

I know the literature inside-out, and I own copies of almost all of it. I can supply large amounts of it by e-mail text to you (but not all, unfortunately). You can write the material as POV free as you like (so long as you will not try to remove accurate and relevant statements that can be verified, or cited). Of course, the suppression of the existence of relevant literature and views by any legitimate player in the debate is not wiki-condoned, and I will always draw a line against that whoever is shunned.

Morley, Nowell & Chase have argued against Turk and myself in their published papers. Rainwarrior has tried to make this only a "Bob Fink" article with his false exaggereated characterizations, even trying to add my name in extra places, as he did also at the Trio theory page. Like he's wanting it to look like personality-pushing -- so as to more easily condemn it later? I am also willing to compromise regarding wordings in dispute. But they must be accurate to the literature. Are you interested in seeing the shorter version (which should add the 2006 information from Morley & Turk, and possibly, when later available, Zoltan Horuitsky and Nowell, et al)? -- Bob Fink, 65.255.225.52 04:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, you raise a number of issues. Let's take them one at a time. The guiding principle here will be coming up with an article which has an encyclopedic tone and which will be perceived by the reader as having a neutral point of view

What should this article cover? As far as I can see, the choices are the Divje Babe site and the bone fragment or just the bone fragment. I personally favor the former as there's a stronger case for notability. Since Divje Babe exists and since it's not strictly a place of local interest, I think it's notable enough for the article. In considering the notability of the bone fragment we could look at Wikipedia:Notability (science), but keep in mind that this is currently a proposed guideline, and thus is a work in progress. Nevertheless, I think it the bone fragment is notable under they "hypothesis" section but not the "scientific theories" section, mostly because the citations given are almost exclusively journals and the popular media coverage is fairly minimal. It's not really worthwhile to debate which section of the proposed guideline that theories about the bone fragment fall under, however; it's sufficient to say that it's probably notable enough for inclusion here.

I think that neither the site nor the bone fragment require such lengthy encyclopedic discussion that separate articles are justified, and I think that having a discussion of both together benefits the reader by providing context.

What should the title of the article be? If we decide that the article should cover both the site and the bone fragment, then I think the existing title is fine. If we decide that the article should be about the bone fragment only (and, again, I don't think that's a good idea) then I have to strongly object to your proposal of "Neanderthal Flute," because that is POV, in ways you probably do not intend. It implies that there is one, single Neanderthal flute. I'm not sure you actually believe that, but this is what the proposed title implies. As you correctly note, however, "The debate though, is still not resolved, and the areas of agreement are minimal, since one view holds it to be an artifact, another holds it to be an accident." I've been using the term "bone fragment" as a NPOV alternative, but should we decide to make the article about the bone fragment only we can consider other proposals which do not give undue weight to one "side" of the debate or the other.

Editor motivations and the ongoing edit war. It is in my opinion a waste of time to discuss what your motivations or Rainwarrior's are. The only thing which matters is the quality of the article, and right now, it is quite frankly a poor read for a non-specialist.

As the lead author of several of the references used in this article, you, Bob, indisputably have a conflict of interest. This implies nothing about your motivations, it's just a fact. Because this article includes your theories it is by extension to some degree about you or at least your work. That doesn't make what you write automatically prejudiced, but the fact is that people are going to read what you write as prejudiced whether it is in fact prejudiced or not. The fact that you have been involved in an edit war with Rainwarrior only reinforces this. It is in everyone's interest, including yours and Rainwarrior's, that the article we create is perceived as honest and NPOV; indeed, Wikipedia official policy requires this. Please note here that I am not saying that you write out of personal self-interest or that you have done anything dishonest. I am strictly mentioning the fact that you, as a published author of some of the references here, have a conflict of interest that "Rainwarrior" does not appear to have.

The Wikipedia guideline on autobiography notes, "You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved. This applies to articles about you, your achievements, your business, your publications, your website, your relatives, and any other possible conflict of interest." Whether or not Rainwarrior "wants" the article to "look like personality-pushing" is, in other words, a relatively small issue in comparison with the reality that people are going to read anything you write about yourself (or anything I write about myself, etc.) as inherently conflicted.

I would like to strongly suggest that you do continue to participate in the discussion here on the talk page but do not edit the article. You need to trust other Wikipedia editors to follow the NPOV policy and you can use a number of means of dispute resolution should we let you down on that. We do need your expertise on the subject matter and we need to make sure that your contributions to the scientific literature are accurately described.

How should the debate be covered? Since, as you state, the question of who or what made the holes and what the purpose, if any, of the bone fragment is, is not settled science, it's important that we do not try to settle it here since Wikipedia is not a scientific journal. We should, in my opinion, note that the debate exists, give concise descriptions of what the various participants have published, and give references for readers who want more information. This should be a matter of a few paragraphs, not the entirety of the article.

Proposed article structure

• Divje Babe
  • History of place
  • Archaeological explorations
    • Archaeologists who worked at site
    • Bone fragment
      • Case for flute /scale theory
      • Case against flute/scale theory
    • Other archaeological findings

--Craig Stuntz 15:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

To Jerome Kohl:

Just to clear up a detail causing confusion in the history: In the book of papers from the 2000 archaeology conference in Berlin, Nowell and Chase did take up Fink's case about the diatonic scale in the paper she presented there. However, their paper was also earlier published on the Internet in 1998, two years prior to the conference. Because of the date it was pre-published, 1998, that is probably why you mistakenly looked to find mention of me in her Current Anthropolgy article of the same date. Of course, her critique of my views was elsewhere. Her Internet publication was not listed in the reading references or notes. But rest assured, she took up my views in her paper and they appear in the 'Studies in Music Archaeology III, pp. 73 thru 81. I would make all this literature accessible on my webpages, but I don't have the copyright to do so.

Thanks for clearing this up on this talk page. I'm surprised that a person with a degree in musicology needs to be told how to clear it up in the article itself, but since you seem to: add this second 1998 publication to the reference list, and differentiate it from the other one by adding letters to the years (Chase and Nowell 1998a, Chase and Nowell 1998b). If the second 1998 article is no longer accessible on the web, then cite the later, 2000 publication and mention in the text its earlier appearance, if relevant.--Jerome Kohl 06:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

So that Craig, who is doing rewrite & cleanup can immediatly see and know what's proposed, I'll reply regarding citations at the bottom of this Talk page. New reply is there. Bob, 65.255.225.33 01:21, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Craig 2

To Craig: The outline you have proposed sounds good to me.

There are some points and some corrections I would like to mention here that differ from your view (but they should not be a deal-breaker here).

First the "object" is commonly known throughout the world, including by huge numbers of the lay public, as the the "Neanderthal Flute." Whether it should be known as such or not, we are stuck with that fact -- and the student will search for it under that name, made famous by the media which blitzed the discovery 'round the world. On the other hand, by comparison, virtually no one knows the name "Divje Babe," or even "femur." I would hope that if the name Divje Babe is kept that we also keep the redirect from the "Neanderthal flute."

Also, when writing for the layperson, as a journalist, I learned that one should not change the common usage and language to the degree that while changes make it become scientifically or technically accurate, it may sound awkward and be further removed from the common reading and comprehension level when we start using phrases like "the bone object" or "purported flute" or "so-called" flute -- which has a POV tinge of its own.

It's a "New Jersey" thing: The name "New" is in New Jersey, but there is no longer anything "new" about New Jersey. This happens in the language many times, but we cause chaos if we keep renaming things and shift the ground out from under readers' feet. I would prefer we keep using "Neanderthal flute" -- but early on, when that name is first used, it could be done that we'd add the modifier "reputed" or a phrase like "the object, commonly known as the Neanderthal flute." Once the dispute (about whether it's a flute or not) is clear to readers, the common name will lose its POV problem. That's my opinion on that.

Second, I didn't write the article that exists now. When I started to write one over a year ago, and started putting it into the wikipedia, I was jumped on, and withdrew my initial text and asked that it be rewritten by people here who knew the subject and the literature. And I advised them of the Wiki rules about POV and giving equal space to the points of view. (If you get time, you'll see all that in the bulk of the "Talk" which here was initially from Terry, Ms. Norton, my publisher, and a few others who followed the subject), and they agreed to make the article conform to wiki POV rules. There are very very few people anywhere who follow the details of the subject of ancient and prehistoric music, and so I had to rely on people I knew and who knew me.

Actually it was their idea that the body of work I had done "should get into wikipedia," just because it seemed to them to belong. I hadn't even been much aware of the phenomenon of wikipedia until they approached me. I was busy trying to get into more and more journals (and still am), and would rather do that anyway, except for the relentless efforts since made by some editors to push that published work back out of wikipedia. I'd had enough of that with the "town vs gown" barrior that I have finally broken through a bit in the past decade. It has made me somewhat suspicious or sensitive at times that merit was not the operative factor in the advancement of knowledge. I had hoped Wikipedia would be less of a barrior. But there was no one we could find who would be independent of some relationship to me.

But now -- there's you. So maybe it can finally be done accurately and free of the appearance of conflict of interest, even unintentionally.

I have remained an editor since then only regarding grammar, factual things like dates, citations, updates, and about new literature, and I note in COI guidelines, that some editing along those lines is clearly permissable, and I would like to maintain that right for convenience -- but always providing justifications and comment in Talk, and aware that even those kinds of edits may be reverted if I have failed to see a POV here or there (and all of us here have agreed to several edits on that score). But not all claims of POV are POV, in the recent past, in my opinion. I do agree there is an innate COI, but I'm glad you wrote it doesn't automatically mean a person's integrity has collapsed.

Regarding literature, let me know what you may want to read, and I'll try to find way to send relevant pages if not whole 700 page books to you. -- Bob Fink 65.255.225.42 01:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I very much like this proposed structure. It will make it much easier to read and understand, and clearly delineate where the opinions from one side or other of the argument begin and end (which will be of great help in solving POV problems). - 09:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rainwarrior (talk • contribs).

Article citation notes

I don't recall anything definite about a name except the title of Turk's monograph (Mousterian flute) -- Turk and others seemed, to my recall, to always carefully say "presumed," "suspected," or "putative" flute, or a word to that effect (even before anyone challenged that it was a flute). Also his terminology was consistently to use the word "mousterian" instead of Neanderthal (not that it matters to me). But technically, though, the paper by Nowell & Chase (placed 1998 on the Internet) titled: "Is a cave bear bone...a Neanderthal flute?" and later presented at the 2000 Archaeology conference in Germany, is the first actual use of those exact words that I've seen -- again not that it matters to me who termed it so.

Turk in his current papers (2005-6) takes pride that he always examined the facts as being supportive of possibly human-made and possibly carnivore-made whenever there was any doubt at all. Indeed, his recent papers severely criticize d'Errico for not pursuing any experimenmts or examinations that could lead to (or rule out) anthropic conclusions, claiming that d'Errico assumed the carnivore conclusion (in Antiquity journal March 1998) from the start, which BTW, was published before d'Errico ever examined the bone first-hand. Turk praised Chase & Nowell for at least openly recognizing that both possibilities were indeed possibilities. Just info -- I can probably copy the Antiquity article and the Nowell archaeology conference article and mail it to you (snail mail) -- I'll need an address, though. -- Best, Bob Fink, [email protected], 65.255.225.51 01:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Turk calls it a "Neanderthal flute" (with scare quotes) in this article. I've added the scare quotes in my last update in order to more closely match his phrasing. That said, it's not uncommon to be more precise in wording for journal articles than for "popular" media.

I don't think Nowell and Chase can be credited with the term, especially since they phrase it as a question and answer "no."

That said, I don't want to credit Turk with something which is anomalous in his work, especially since others could have edited the cited article. If nobody's willing to take credit for the phrase we should probably say something along the lines of "sometimes referred to in the popular media as..."

--Craig Stuntz 02:15, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

That's fine with me, about the name. BTW, I would and could have put the d'Errico Antiquity '98 article info & pictures into this article, except for the restrictions of copyright which probably Antiquity/d'Errico would not relax for me. But judicious quoting from it and permissions sought by others (not me) might get some permissions (Or not?). But d'Errico's Antiquity article has been described in this wiki article. We earlier got as much into the article by d'Errico as possible. The two journal items represent the entirety of d'Errico's Divje Babe writings on that bone. What was quoted from d'Errico was a small part of his Journal of World Prehistory article, and probably "fair-use" applies without permsission req'd. --Bob 65.255.225.51 02:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

To Jerome Kohl: (updated) I don't know why the confusion arose about the Nowell paper, or who originally wrote any mistaken reference in this wiki article about Nowell's challenge of my view about the diatonic nature of the bone (other than in the 1998 Blake Edgar item -- the date of which must have been somehow confused with Nowell's paper?). Her & Chase's paper, was actually "officially" published in 2003, after the conference heard it in 2000 in Berlin. That 2003 citation is already in the list of readings (Studies...III). Adding that her paper appeared on the Internet is up to you and Craig. I see no point in it now, as nothing in the article now refers to that Internet version or that strange 1998 date you saw somewhere in the article. I searched the Internet archives and found her paper was pre-published (prior to 2003) on the internet in July 2001 (see: http://web.archive.org/web/20010723082322/http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~pchase/). It could have been published even earlier and seen earlier by me under a different URL which I don't now have to search with. The proceedings hadn't been published yet, and that Internet version was the first I saw of her paper by an accidental search result (as I didn't attend the conference). --Bob Fink 65.255.225.33 01:43, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

P.s. To Craig, and anyone: Now that I found the archival copy, the URL for archival info just above provides the full text (but images were not archived) of the Nowell paper later published in the 2003 Studies...III.

I notice you have now added a citation to something called "Nowell et al., 2003", but there is nothing in the reference list under that name. Did you mean to cite "d'Errico et al. 2003", the "et al." of which includes Nowell, or is this a completely different item?--Jerome Kohl 05:57, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm referring to this one under "Further Reading" -- (Both Nowell citations should now be moved to references): Chase, Philip G., and April Nowell. 2002-2003. "Is a cave bear bone from Divje Babe, Slovenia, a Neanderthal flute? The Divje Babe specimen and the diatonic scale" in Studies in Music Archaeology III. [Place]: Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH. ISBN 3-89646-640-2

Bob Fink's work

Bob Fink, is there a list of your (non-self-)published work? --Craig Stuntz 16:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

For the purposes of this subject:

1. Neanderthal Flute -- Greenwich Publ., 1997, (already listed in the refs and readings) but we've also granted permission for it to be republished --in whole or in part-- inside a number of magazines & other journals, and you will find several among the long lists cited at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Musical_acoustics#Notability_of_Fink.27s_work_in_musical_acoustics_.26_music_origins -- and for several webpages which republished this essay, search google under: +Fink +"Neanderthal Flute"
2. Article "The Neanderthal flute and origin of the scale: fang or flint? A response." in Ellen Hickmann, Anne Draffkorn Kilmer and Ricardo Eichmann (Eds.), Studies in Music Archaeology III 2002-3 Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH., Rahden/Westf. Germany, pp 83-87. This contains the probability analysis in a longer article -- but it's not on line yet. (I have added it fully to the references list now.)
3. I've been invited by a Turkish academic musicology peer-reviewed journal to write an article on this bone, deadline March 2007.
4. The "secondary literature" mentioned by Nowell includes articles about my flute viewpoint in Scientific American (See Sept 1997, p. 28); and Science journal See April 11, 1997 pp 203-5.

Do you want more than just relating to the Divje Babe bone? Bob F. 65.255.225.49 07:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Anything related to Divje Babe (not just the bone) would be helpful for this article. No, I don't need stuff completely unrelated to Divje Babe. Thanks! --Craig Stuntz 13:38, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Article citation notes 2

I have made word changes, moved a paragraph up and added citations from Nowell, d'Errico to further separate difference between narration and my view on probbaility.

To Jerome -- Will move up several citations from Further Reading to References where they belong. Bob F. 65.255.225.43 17:48, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Not disputed by others

I changed "four holes" to "at least two holes" in the "not disputed by others" section since d'Errico is explicitly cited and d'Errico, et. al. say this on p. 37 of the 2003 paper:

"The presence of two or possibly three perforations on the suggested flute..."

--Craig Stuntz 17:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Rainwarrior (talk • contribs) changed this to "The two speculative holes on the ends are lined up with the two complete holes." I don't have a problem with this statement per se, but I do have a problem attributing it to d'Errico et. al. or Chase and Newell since they don't even call one of the supposed incomplete holes a possible hole at all. Making broad statements about what "all parties agree" is dangerous... --Craig Stuntz 19:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I have a problem with the wording of that entire passage, myself, as I wrote above, but Mr. Fink introduced a citation above (on this talk page) that indicates that d'Errico at least acknowledges the speculation about four holes, and I don't see any reason to doubt it at this point. I also wonder whether or not the comment that both holes are the same size is relevant. In what way does that suggest human as opposed to animal cause? Actually, I don't think we need the bulk text of this probability argument at all (nor do we need so much text from d'Errico). I think we could outline the whole argument much more succinctly (the key information I think is the actual odds calculated) and follow with an external link to Mr. Fink's webpage, which has ample description of the argument. - Rainwarrior 20:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The brief 1998 passage quoted seems to be a summation of the arguments by others in favor of the flute theory, rather than his own analysis. In any event even if you presume that d'Errico meant in 1998 that he personally felt that there were four holes then, having published something different later on without commenting on his change of views on the subject I don't think it's appropriate to use him as a source for this. I can't make that presumption, myself, but whichever way you fall on the question I don't think he's an appropriate source for this.--Craig Stuntz 21:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Also on p. 37 of the above, d'Errico et. al. write:

"Moreover, the correlation between the maximum and minimum diameter in this sample indicates a clear tendency towards slightly elongated holes, the same pattern that we observe when measuring the two complete holes of the suggested flute."

So I've removed "Are nearly all circular (unlike bites which are usually oval);" from the list of points "agreed by all." d'Errico and his coauthors are clearly stating that their observation is that the Divje Babe bone and their "comparative faunal sample" have similarly shaped holes, whereas the section I removed asserted that everyone, including d'Errico in particular, agreed that the Divje Babe bone's holes were differently shaped than a typical bite.

I don't have a problem with attributing this similitude to people who support it, but it seems pretty clear to me that d'Errico does not.

--Craig Stuntz 17:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The article now says:

"Those observations suggest human design (d'Errico, 1998, Nowell, 2003: "looks like a flute")"

However, saying that something "looks like a flute" is not the same as saying that it was designed by humans. I'm still making my way through the papers here, but it seems to me that d'Errico et. al. say that there is essentially no evidence that the bone was carved by humans, and Chase and Nowell openly question the notion that looks = causation:

At first glance, the number of holes on one side and their fairly linear arrangement give the object a decidedly flute-like appearance. When presented with an object such as the Divje Babe specimen, however, it is imperative for the archaeologist to ascertain that modifications to the bone are indeed the product of human workmanship.

Hence I don't think the statement that the object looks like a flute can be used as a citation that human design is suggested, at least insofar as attributing the notion to Chase and Nowell or d'Errico.

--Craig Stuntz 18:32, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Craig: You wrote: "I don't have a problem with attributing this similitude to people who support it, but it seems pretty clear to me that d'Errico does not."

Instead, perhaps you'll just take out d'Errico, or exclude any attribution that other authors "all agree" if you wish, and leave in the list of observations as it was before the edit -- as it is the basis of the probability study. Your edit renders the rest of the study perplexing & meaningless as it no longer follows logically after your edit, because it talks about four -- not fewer -- holes.

The change which states "The two speculative holes on the ends are lined up with the two complete holes." is awkward, but acceptable to me -- except -- it is inaccurate to use the word "speculative." There is no such thing as a "speculative hole." If the holes were made by animals, then they used teeth. The semicircular aspect on both ends is certainly from a tooth (if bitten at all). If so, it was a real hole made by a real oval or round tooth, and is properly called what everyone at one point or another called it -- an "incomplete hole."

"Speculative" is strongly POV for the carnivore side. Since holes cannot exist as "imaginary," or as a hunch, it can only mean those end holes are "speculated" to be human-made rather than carnivore originated. There is evidence the holes were chewed into existence, except for the later CT-scan which indeed provides evidence they were human-made prior to the surrounding chewing damage. But also, there is no evidence (prior to the CT-scan) that the chewing damage was made at the time the incomplete holes were made. So the chewing is not proved to be linked to the formation of the incomplete holes. They could have been made incomplete by being broken off later or chewed later or from any number of causes. So all four holes are equally "speculative."

To officially announce only the end holes are "speculation," then, is to depict Wikipedia as buying the whole POV of d'Errico, Nowell, et al, that the end-holes are definitely not human-made while the middle two may be. But Turk's 2005 CT-scan results show otherwise, and as Nowell wrote: "At this point, it is in fact impossible to disprove either hypothesis (about whether it was a flute or not). Which hypothesis one accepts, then, depends on one's assessment of their relative probability...." (p. 74, Studies...III 2003)

So please change the "speculative" to "incomplete"? And add to the end of it, "along the axis of the bone fragment."? The sentence would then read: "The two incomplete holes on the ends are lined up with the two complete holes along the axis of the bone." The fact of dispute regarding the origin of the end holes need not be mentioned if we remove all claim of attributing this list of observations (not "analysis") to all the authors.

Also please, based on both the d'Errico 1998 & Nowell's 2003 writings, replace the item: "* Are nearly all circular (unlike bites which are usually oval);" as the lack of a clear oval aspect has been noted by all. Hence they all resort to lower round teeth to explain the round holes (plus erosion over time) both which cannot be proven. Especially replace the item if any attribution of agreement by others is removed. The section can then remain exclusively a simple statistical calculation without referring to others' POVs or others agreeing or disputing it. I do think an author's arithmetic should be intact (as Craig proposed separate places for them) and not be riddled with voodoo pins, warnings, red lights or snippets of opposing POVs.

As to shortening me and d'Errico -- do d'Errico first. You have the complete flute quote from the longer paper (which remainder is not about the flute). If you can summarize the quote accurately -- who you'd consult besides d'Errico, I don't know -- then I'll provide an equivalent shorter version of the probability item as suggested, with a link for more detail.

Nothing beats POV and COI like exact quotes in full -- is why this d'Errico quote was put in complete.

The significance of "equivalent diameters" is that this is a probability study. There are 4 similar diameters, but if accidental bites are really at work, they could have been any size diameters, made by any animal's bite strong enough to pierce the shell. Odds could be calculated from among all the many possible combinations of diameters for accidental bitten holes of different animals known to be present (made one bite at a time, as all agreed, proved and can be cited). Those odds would be astronomicalty against finding equivalent diameters (and lined-up). But that's arithmetic, and checkable. It's evidence, not a POV. You could still believe that accident "beat the odds," if you wanted to ignore the odds.

The d'Errico item I cited was his 1998 atrticle. D'Errico wrote the following in his 1998 paper in Antiquity p. 69, and nothing newer existed from him 'at the time' my study was written and published. Here's what he wrote (in case you haven't got the article):

"The reasons that would suggest an anthropic origin for the perforations...can be summarized as follows pertinent to this edit:

1. The unusual number of holes, two clearly visible, four according to the first reconstruction (Turk et al 1995)...;
2. Their unusual position, at the center of a long bone shaft;
3. Their regular round shape, interpreted as an index of human manufacture; (Note "round")
4. The dimensions of the two complete holes...compatible with their use as flute's fingerholes;
5. The supposed similarilty of this object with (other UP flutes) with holes aligned on the major axis of the diaphysis; (Note: "aligned")
6. The absence of spongy bone inside the marrow cavity allowing the use of the shaft as a wind instrument.

These are d'Errico's list of observations, not his interpretations of them -- which we know he did not find was sufficient evidence for him to conclude the bone as human made.

Nowell & Chase (Nowell, 2003) wrote as follows:

On p. 74, they write: "There is little dispute about the observations that have been made on the specimen itself. There are, however, disagreements about the interpretation of these observations." The full text is available to read at: http://web.archive.org/web/20010723082322/http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~pchase/ Do you have an actual photo of the flute? If not, see: http://www.greenwych.ca/n-flute.jpg

P.s.We need to separate interpretations from observations or evidence. They cannot be interchangeable in scientific method, especially when the observations are simple to describe. For Turk's evidence, it's summarized and partially quoted verbatim (to 2000 so far) at: http://www.greenwych.ca/chewchip.htm. --Bob Fink 65.255.225.47 00:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm fine with keeping the original list for the time being without the misattributions. I've restored it, less attribution to d'Errico and others, and changed the oval line as you suggested. Since this is your work that this section describes, I've clarified that.

I guess my methodology is less than obvious, so let me briefly summarize how I'm going about what I expect will be an extensive series of changes to the article. I'm working from top to bottom, with the structure I proposed above in mind. I'm focusing right now on four things:

• Basic cleanup: Wikification, reference formatting, removing inline links in favor of references, etc.
• Getting a more well rounded portrait of the Divje Babe site, not just the single bone, and
• Writing information about the flute-like bone that everyone agrees on, and
• Citing everything.

In terms of the top to bottom approach, I haven't gotten very far; just the first few paragraphs. But as I read the references I'm finding that some of the attributions presently in the article don't match what I'm reading. So I'm replacing or removing those as I find them. When writing about a difference of opinion I think it is very wrong to misattribute views.

I expect that the later paragraphs will change significantly before I'm done. So although I'm trying to keep them readable, my changes right now are not supposed to be indicative of the final form of the article; that's why I put the {{Underconstruction}} message on the "Flute" section. Since I'm focusing right now on stuff that everyone agrees on for the start of the article, the "agreed by all" bit at the end of the article seemed relevant. But if this bit is to represent Fink's work rather than "all," then I agree the thing for me to do for now is clarify that and leave the rest of it alone for the time being.

That said, I think the probability analysis bit needs to be about a sentence in the final version. The reason being that this sort of work has a lot of room for error and misinterpretation, and really doing justice to the subject would significantly exceed the scope of the article.

Also, although I intend to shorten the article, or at least the flute section, I'm not shortening it at all right now; on the contrary I've been adding to it, overall. In order to keep things readable as I work, I want the "replacement" text in place before I remove the stuff I'm replacing. --Craig Stuntz 01:38, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Craig -- You wrote: "I'm fine with keeping the original list for the time being without the misattributions."

They're not misattributions. I'm just worn out from beating my head against a brick wall. I quoted the remarks by d'Errico above. They're plain English. You don't read them the same as I do. I think you're misattributing what he wrote to be that he doesn't agree the 4 holes are lined up. :So when Nowell says there is little diagreement with the observations, you disagree with her, I take it?

Are you denying two people can observe the same thng (e.g., it looks like a UP flute) and agree on what they observe -- even though they'll come to opposite conclusions? If so then you are failing to understand the distinction between "evidence" and POVs or conlusions, or whatever you call it.

Probability can be mathematical. When it is, unless there's a mistake, then it's evidence, not a POV. Observations are independent of POVs. The math is not subject to wild misinterpretations and error -- unless you find an error. What error have I made? Do you think calling a hole "damage" makes the hole cease to exist? That it ceases to be observed by the person calling it "damage"? If denying that, then I cannot fathom that kind of thinking.

But have your way. I leave you with this short analogy to the probability issue: Suppose I show you a bone, and on it are clearly scratched marks that look like the letter "F" -- and ALSO, the letters L, U, T, and E. And these are lined up, like a word. And then I say these marks were made by separate random scratchings and bites by carnivores. What are odds that this could occur by accident of nature? Especially if all the letters have the same height? The odds would be very similar as for the Divje Babe femur. Astronomical -- next to impossible.

I could then go into a cave frequented only by carnivores and inevitably find bones which have scracthes that look like letters. Like an F or an E, etc. But never lined up like a word! And that's the fatal flaw in the Nowell, et al case: They didn't realize the odds would be so great that they could never reasonably claim a carnivore-explanation was the "most likely" explanation. They didn't think to do the math. So ruling out the name "holes" and replacing it with "notches" or "damage" or other euphemisms for a tooth "hole," cannot change that these openings are *still lined up* and in a spacing matching a widely known scale sequence -- and of similar diameters and all round. They are saying that nature built a relatively sophisticated flute with no human help; that the line up no longer needs to be explained. They are missing the "whole" for overly seeing only the hole. Like the "Emperor's New Clothes" fable -- no one can notice the naked truth.

They ask us to believe in a miracle of natural accident and claim it is explainable simply and as the most likely of explanations. The Divje Babe bone is no common everyday happening. It is the only such bone in the world -- if made by accident. D'Errico cannot produce among the thousands of bones in collections touched only by carnivores that looks anything like that bone. But go ahead, give probability "one sentence." Buy wholely into their POV for this article by protecting that POV from the evidence that simple probability would force them to be scientifically accountable to. Without even reading it, you've already scrapped the tomography evidence as well by accepting a shallow semantic re-name of plain holes as certainly carnivore-made.

One of the editors of the book "Origins of Music" by MIT press 2000 wrote me this: "Bob:...I have not seen your argument against d'Errico - I guess that's the publication in Antiquity arguing against the (Divje Babe) 'flute' on the basis of thousands of bones, some with holes in them, yes? I read it and was appalled at the bias that pervaded their write-up (and wrote Turk about it). Their bone collection convinced me in favor of Turk, because the one thing they maintain studious silence about is the linear arrangement of the holes -- they do not have a single bone among those thousands which comes even close to the striking linear alignment of Turk's holes (I gather from what you say that this is part of your argument against them), and not to discuss this central and crucial issue is just bad scholarship and bad science.

But (there are) academic theories about the status of Neanderthals...at stake, and so they fight with the fury of theologians... The strange thing about science is that it progresses despite the biasesof its practitioners, but that can be a long process in which lives are ruined along the way.... " -- Bjorn M., Sweden. --Bob Fink 65.255.225.49 08:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

No one has scrapped the CT evidence. The fact is that it is new, and the opposing side of the argument has not had a chance to respond. Furthermore, it seems that no one here has yet managed to read Turk's new article except you. I'm sure one of us will eventually get to it, but it may take time. However, your opinion seems to be that it clearly demonstrates that all four holes are man-made, and this means the debate is over. I, personally, don't have an opinion of the CT evidence because I have not read it. My opinion of it, however, is not particularly relevant. Neither is yours, really, unless you've published it. I haven't noticed any reference here to any published opinion of this new evidence, other than the original article. (If you've got a quote from the Turk 2006 article indicating that the debate is over in his opinion, that'd be fine to have in the article, I think.)

Whether Nowell/Chase or d'Errico do not address ideas that you think are fundamental (such as hole-alignment), they claim to have reviewed your work and give their opinion of it. Whether you think they've intentionally ignored something important, it is still their published opinion that this object is not demonstrably a man-made flute. Evidently it was their opinion that the alignment was not important enough to discuss, and left it out. (Either that, or it was a mistake, but either way, their opinion is published, and clear.)

The neutral point of view here is not to give both sides equal space on the page. Having one passage appear in one POV and the next appear in another is simply confusing. All passages must be as neutral as possible, and this means we must attribute opinions to their proponents. This also means that we must not use language which directly asserts things which are debatable. We can say with attribution to you that there is evidence of four holes in alignment, and this would be NPOV. To say that the others agree with this is quite misleading. Alignment presupposes (and implies) that the holes were created by the same agent, which neither of these authors appears to agree with. To say that they agree with it, or even worse, to say that their silence about the alignment implies agreement, is a very, very biased interpretation of their writings.

For instance, your quote of Nowell/Chase in our discussion above about observations does not define what the observations are (nor does the cited article itself). I don't see any reason to interpret this as referring to the particular observations you've listed in the article, nor does Craig Stuntz seem to. Furthermore the pictures included that indicate those holes are there for the purposes of addressing your argument, and in fact carry the caption "the locations of the holes are highly theoretical in nature in that they ignore several factors (see text for details)."

I don't think the probability argument should actually be reduced to a single sentence. The references from other articles (like Nowell/Chase, Morley, etc.) and the article in Science about it are enough to justify some description of it, but again it needs to be written in a neutral point of view which does not make misleading claims. You should allow someone else to write this, as your opinion of your own work is clearly biased, and at any rate is a serious conflict of interest. I think in the final article the argument would deserve about a paragraph worth of writing, but there is a lot in that text, including the diagrams, which merely reiterate the same arguments (I find the tone a little patronizing, even). Finally, even if we make the details of your argument unclear (thought this is not my goal), the external link to your website will be clearly visible, and you of course have complete control over what appears at that end of the link. There is no danger that the interested reader will be unable to find the full text of your argument.

- Rainwarrior 09:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I very much agree with Bob Fink that the observations/evidence and the interpretations need to be kept separate. I've said more or less that before, but I think he put it better. I'm working on evidence now (first few paragraphs of the article), and I really haven't started with interpretations other than cleaning up references.

I also strongly agree with Rainwarrior's statement that his opinion (or mine, or Bob Fink's unpublished material/statements on this Talk page, etc.) is not allowed in article space. We can only use published, verifiable sources. Hence, I think it's a distraction to discuss the validity of Fink's probability analysis on this Talk page; even if we settled the issue here we couldn't use it in the article.

Since there is debate on the findings about this bone, and since the debate has made it into the popular and science press enough to be notable, I'm trying to be very careful to represent the points of view accurately. I don't want to settle the debate (indeed, that's not allowed in Wikipedia), I want to accurately and fairly describe it.

The statement about roundness of the holes doesn't merely say that they were round but also says that the shape is different than a carnivore bite. Given that d'Errico et. al. have written that they find the hole shape is the same as that of a carnivore bite ("Moreover, the correlation between the maximum and minimum diameter in this [carnivore] sample indicates a clear tendency towards slightly elongated holes, the same pattern that we observe when measuring the two complete holes of the suggested flute."), I don't think the fact that they have described the shape as "regular round" in an earlier paper can be used to say that d'Errico supports the view that the shape is different than that of a carnivore! I really don't have a problem with describing Fink's published arguments in the article, but I do have a problem with attributing them to people who seem to largely disagree with them. Fink says the shape of the holes is different than that of a carnivore bite, and d'Errico et. al. say it's similar. Whether or not the holes can be described as "round," there's a plain disagreement on the similitude to carnivore-caused holes.

Fink asks me, "So when Nowell says there is little disgareement with the observations, you disagree with her, I take it?" No, I do not disagree with this statement in the context in which it appears in her paper. I agree that there seems to be little disagreement about the observations she describes, which are not precisely the same as those in the article. My original take on this section was to change it to things that everyone really does agree on, and I think Chase and Nowell's descriptions are as good as anyone's. But Fink said on this talk page that this made the rest of the section less sensible and suggested changing it back to the original without the "everyone agrees" attribution, and I agreed with his call on this.

I am frankly baffled by this statement from Fink here: "Without even reading it, you've already scrapped the tomography evidence as well by accepting a shallow semantic re-name of plain holes as certainly carnivore-made." Which edit have I made says the holes are certainly carnivore-made? If I have even implied this I want to fix it. I thought that the fact that the bone has been damaged by a carnivore was uncontested. The article presently says, "All parties agreed that the bone has been chewed, especially at the ends..." I didn't write this, but I think it's correct. Is it wrong? Again, if this is wrong it needs to be fixed; I think we must be very careful when writing things like "all parties agree." Please be specific about which edits or lines in the article say that the holes are "certainly carnivore-made," because I can't find them and don't want them in the article. I hope it's plain that when someone takes issue with my edits I fix the problems quickly. --Craig Stuntz 16:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Not disputed by others 2

Most of all the problems here stem from this mistake: "Alignment presupposes (and implies) that the holes were created by the same agent...."

Alignment is a visual, geometrical observation. It innately cannot imply any one thing to everyone! Both of you seem unable to grasp the difference between observations (evidence) which is objective, and implications, which are subjective.

As a result, you scrap the evidence that my published work (the list of observations) had attributed accurately to the others, because you connect their dispute over the origin of the holes as being inextricably connected to the observations they too (essentially) noted. That's why you cannot read that they too agreed, as Nowell said, to the observations -- because they don't interpret the alignment (which they agreed they saw) as human-made. The observation (like the baby-bathwater) is thrown out because their interpretation differs from the other POV.

Take the word "alignment": Do you see all the letters in the word are lined-up? Of course you Do. Does that alignment of letters imply who wrote that word? Of course not!!! Anyone (carnivore or human) could've written it, by design or accident. The fact that accident is far less likely (probability study evidence) cannot change the letters there, nor is observation/letters now not seen by someone who interprets alignment is carnivore-originated. As long you as you cannot make the distinction between evidence and interpretation, you will remain victim of every re-naming of holes that d'Errico and Morley use. Thus you buy a "special" character of 2 end holes as "speculative" versus 2 middle holes -- which is an interpretation of what are STILL HOLES!!! When you also stop calling them holes anymore, you BUY the d'Errico/Morley point of view. You then deny they agree that what's being observed (at the beginning of this paragraph) is the word "alignment." Can't see the mistake in that?

Of course, ALL evidence/observation always implies (suggests), a conclusion to someone. Lack of probability implies this object is human made -- To one or more observers. AND ALSO NOT to others. But the observing and the evidence remains the same. You cannot throw out the evidence because someone interprets it differently from the conclusions which YOU think the evidence suggests. No matter how strongly it is suggested. Evidence is evidence, let the chips (for the reader) fall where they may. That's why they ignore it, try to bury it. They now know they cannot answer it except by invoking massive coincidence. It's not your job to protect them from the alignment evidence that they really have (at least originally) recognized. That's not "neutrality." Your job is merely to report that evidence even if it embarasses any one POV. I hope you get it. If not, the article will inevitably result in being POV and in suppressing or marginalizing the evidence.

Observation and interpretation: Two different words! Fundamental in the scientific method. --Bob Fink 65.255.225.47 01:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

First, statements like "Both of you seem unable to grasp the difference between..." are quite frankly condescending. Be civil, please. Wikipedia official policy requires it.

It's unclear who the "you" is here, but for the record I don't agree with this statement: "Alignment presupposes (and implies) that the holes were created by the same agent...." It seems to me that you are sort of combining what Rainwarrior has written and what I have written into a single character, but as far as I can see there is quite a bit the two of us don't agree upon. (Alignment is one example; the relevance of discussing Fink's motives here seems to be another as I think they're completely irrelevant and shouldn't even be guessed at.) For the record I don't think that alignment presupposes that they were created by the same agent, but as I've mentioned before, my personal opinions are irrelevant to the article.

Bob Fink, do you honestly feel that d'Errico would agree with the statement that the holes are "unlike bites" when d'Errico et. al. have explicitly written that they are shaped like bites? If not then this statement cannot be attributed to d'Errico, full stop. That doesn't mean it can't be made, it just can't be attributed to someone who has written the opposite!

If you do feel that he'd support this attribution, then we just disagree in our readings of his work. We could rephrase the point to be something he clearly agrees with, but that still leaves the question of the number of holes; both Nowell and Morley are much more hesitant than you about whether the shape of the ends of the bones are part of what was a hole in the original, unbroken bone.--Craig Stuntz 01:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for wrongly including you. I did so only on the basis that the "speculation" edit by Rainwater did not seem a problem to you -- but I apologise anyway, perhaps you would have objected to it had I not done so.

Let's agree to disagree about the way we read the other authors. It's always true that people "read between the lines" or read "the inside of their own glasses" as we are all subject to our unconscious or conscious biases. It may be best for me to try to wait until you're finished before I jump in.

As to d'Errico, I never said he agreed that the holes differed. I only pointed out what Turk and others noted, that the holes were unusually round for bites. D'Errico then found other bitten holes that were also round to show it was possible, and Nowell & d'Errico both felt a need to undertake explanations for the roundness they agreed was there in Divje Babe -- which were explanations based on erosion or repeat bites, for two that they wrote about somewhere. (Updated the next sentence for clarity Greenwyk 06:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)) Why would they try to explain the roundness that they don't see? I'm sure you'll find that writing. I only sought to indicate that, in one form or another, d'Errico agreed the holes had unusual "roundness." For most bites, roundness or circular holes seem to need expanations in that taphonomic field, because they are not as usual as oval shapes. Please note, there is no "shape" to a hole. It can be any shape. D'Errico's idea that a hole must be round is not a definition any of us should accept as fact in our use of the term. Again, Webtser explains it's an opening, tear, rip, etc.

Separate point. In the top paragraph, you say the bone is about "half the length" of the broken femur. But you may consider modifying that, after reading these opinions from three experienced museum paleontologists: http://www.greenwych.ca/fl2debat.htm#kuhn ...--Bob F. 65.255.225.44 02:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC) Also replaced "See Also" -- I think it was knocked out by accident -- but if removed for a reason, some summary of that should be noted. Or maybe I can't find it. At 71, my eyes are not that reliable any more. Bob F. 65.255.225.52 02:17, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

An article

I found an article where an accomplished flutist, Jelle Atema plays on a copy of the Neanderthal flute. There are notes about diatonic and pentatonic scale. WBR, Serg. 87.240.15.26 21:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Replaced revised item on the length of the bone femur

I am replacing the remarks. You wrote "Fink's personal correspondence is not citable." But all the quotes on the length of the femur are published also in "Studies in Music Archaeology III." Further, Boylan himself published confirmation of his findings on the bone in the Museum_L archives on July 10, 1997. In that confirmation Patrick Boylan wrote, NOT to me, but to the public and his colleagues, in part:

"There is not the slightest doubt about the authenticity of the piece. I first followed up Bob Fink's appeal for info. on the likely minimum length of the juvenile Cave bear (bone) in relation to the possible range of notes - with work on the large collections in Prague..... Then in April I saw the recently excavated Neanderthal flute itself in the National Museum in Ljubljana, Slovenia.... As worked out by Bob Fink, from the mathematics of the piece, it plays what we like to think of as the modern Western musical scale - in a minor key. -- Patrick Boylan.

The citation stands because it is published information about the nature of the femur completely independent of me. Plus the citing of technical or scientific information, even if provided by correspondence to one person, is not "personal." It is like when Turk requested laboratory experts to experimentally simulate the teeth-impact on bones, in which all bones tested shattered. The lab experts did not publish those experimental results themselves, but gave or sent them to Turk who published them. If my requesting and receiving expert information is disqualified as "personal correspondence," then so must Turk's citing of the information provided by the lab experts he consulted. If you call such transmissions of work-results as private or personal correspondence and not citable, then likely several hundred thousands of citations in Wikipedia would now have to be removed, because information is often conveyed in a similar manner.

But in this case, it is information conveyed not at all to me, but is also published to others. However, in restoring the remarks, to prevent you from repeating your "rule," I will not quote my accessible page of those quotes (which would be useful to Wiki readers) but will instead refer to it from published and public sources, in order to truthfully show that informed published opinion to the debate exists -- rather than suppress the truth and distort the neutral or balanced POV, which should not be done. Has not the Wiki idea been to exhort editors to "save the info" by improving it, rather than by using overkill destructive deleting? 65.255.225.43 12:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)Bob Fink

It's properly attributed to a published source now, at least. (Though I would still advise you not to cite yourself while also under a clear conflict of interest.) - Rainwarrior 19:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Probability

I feel like the odds given of the holes occuring by chance are slightly misleading. Supposing I take four twenty sided dice. The odds of getting four 20s is 1 / 160,000, which is pretty unlikely. But the odds of getting ANY given combination is the same. For instance a seemingly unconnected set(say.. 13, 17, 9, 20) is also 1 / 160,000. Or else an apparent pattern (12, 14, 16, 18), again, same odds. The low odds of any given set does not stop me from getting these patterns and there is no reason why I should disbelieve a roll of four 20s if it happened. So I don't feel like a discussion of the probability of the holes occuring by chance is relevant, since the same chance would apply to any given configuration of holes.

I don't wish to weigh in on the debate (I don't know enough about the issue), I just want to say that the seeming improbability of the holes happening by chance doesn't rule out that it did happen in this case. With only a single sample to go on, probability is not a good approach. 152.91.9.219 (talk) 05:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the probability calculation is really very dubious, but without a source there's not much that can be said to contradict it. I've changed the title of the article to reflect its content and therefore moved the discussion of the site itself to a subsection. Use of the word flute in the title does not endorse the claim. It merely reflects usage when the object is discussed. I've no idea what the medieval image of someone blowing glass was supposed to prove, along with a whacky passage about Slovenian words for flutes and pipes. There's nothing unusual about languages using word for "pipe" in different ways. It's true of English too. Does the author think Neanderthals spoke Slovenian? Even in the slightly unlikely circumstance that they did, why would this be relevant? Paul B (talk) 10:43, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I removed the "probability" essay from this article a few days ago, and have reduced it to about a single sentence. I haven't yet seen any other article either acknowledge or rebut it (though there are a few I haven't read yet), and the only person who was asserting its importance here was its author (Bob Fink). There's still a link to his website where readers can take a look at his calculations, but (even if it wasn't dubious) none of it seemed appropriate material for the article. His "diatonic scale" argument, however, was discussed by several other authors. - Rainwarrior (talk) 16:40, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh right. I only meant the one sentence remaining. I guess it depends on how many scales are possible, how much leeway you allow for the holes to be "in tune" and where you place the two "missing" holes. That would seem to allow so much leeway that I seriously doubt the reliability to the 'few in several million' claim. It's a pity we can't address that without violating WP:OR. Paul B (talk) 19:43, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Public display

Enjoyed the article, it added context after I'd seen the bone/flute in Ljubljana. Thanks to those who've done the editing work. It did seem to me that where and how the item is presented to the public is of interest. (The article concerns the item, not just the debate over its relevance.) I therefore added a new section; hope it hasn't damaged any consensus. Folks at 137 (talk) 07:08, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Useful stuff. I've rearraged the information to integrate it with the specific arguments. Paul B (talk) 19:36, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Steven Mithen and another flute

This was added recently:

Steven Mithen (2006) proposes that the Neanderthals had an elaborate proto-linguistic system of communication which was more musical than modern human language, and which predated the separation of language and music into two separate modes of cognition. However some people argue that singing and playing flute do not relate at all. Another European bone flute dated to 37-30 kya was discovered on the other northern Alp side by Prof. Nicholas Conard.

I have a couple of questions: 1. Does Steven Mithen comment on this particular flute? What is his the link between his "proto-linguistic communication" and this (potential) artifact? 2. "Some people argue" is very weak language. Who argues this, and why is it relevant? 3. The article about the much younger European flute does not specify whether it was made by Neanderthal or modern Human (they were co-habitant at that time), and also claims to be the oldest known flute. How should we treat this information in relation to the Divje Babe artifact? I don't think that simply mentioning that someone else found a definite flute that is 20,000 years younger doesn't really help us understand the Divje Babe's significance. There should be more to say on it, but I am not sure what.

-- Rainwarrior (talk) 05:56, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The stuff about the singing Neanderthals is interesting but borderline WP:SYNTH. Birds sing but they don't make flutes. There's no obvious relationship between the two activities. As for the sentence about later flutes, it seems irrelevant. We know that flutes existed later, and the fact is alluded to in the quotation further down the article ("uncontested bone flutes from European Upper Paleolithic"). Perhaps a sentence or two on the dates of the earliest uncontested flutes would be desirable? Paul B (talk) 11:26, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll just move it here to the talk page for now. Feel free to integrate appropriate parts back into the article. - Rainwarrior (talk) 06:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Mithen does comment on the flute (pp. 243-244) and doubts that it is a human artifact, accepting D'Errico's argument. This goes along with his doubt that Neanderthals had the ability to manufacture musical instruments, based on his interpretation of their cognitive abilities. In light of that, the removed material is basically an accurate description of his opinion of the musicality of Neanderthals, but its inclusion here seems to mischaracterize his opinion regarding this object. Rigadoun (talk) 07:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

References

A recent X-RAY COMPUTED MICRO-TOMOGRAPHY OF THE DIVJE BABE ‘FLUTE’

A recent article in Archaeometry (2012) describes a micro CT examination of the Divje Babe flute. Just thought you might be interested. It is available at

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4754.2011.00630.x/abstract — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevekirb (talk • contribs) 15:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Paleolithic is still considered to be the French domain

I am trying to work out what exactly this is supposed to mean:

"Such bones were discovered also elsewhere in Central Europe, but in a much lower number, and it is unlikely that cave bears would make such holes only in Central Europe and only in a specific period. That these bones are still not recognised by international research community, Mitja Brodar attributes to the fact that most of the bones were found on the territory of France and the Paleolithic is still considered to be the French domain, although not a single bone with holes have been found there. The only one ever discovered bone point with a hole has been discovered in Potok Cave."

It's clearly part of recent additions presenting the views of Mitja Brodar, which have been rather clumsily inserted into the article at various places. I think it's saying that the French believe they have some sort of monopoly on Paleolithic "high culture" and so finds from elsewhere tend to get ignored. But its all rather rambling and tangental. Should the passage "most of the bones were found on the territory of France" have the word "not" in it? Paul B (talk) 15:08, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I've been invited to comment here on the text I added back in March 2012.[4] Frankly, I don't remember anymore about reading this article, but the relevant sentence actually states: "There are no holes in the west of Europe, and because the Palaeolithic is unfortunately still decided about by the French who have most of it, these holes are still not recognised as a human work." ([Na zahodu Evrope lukenj ni, in ker o paleolitiku žal še vedno odločajo Francozi, ki ga imajo največ, te luknje še vedno niso priznane kot človeško delo.]). --Eleassar ^{my talk} 20:00, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

The French control the paleolithic? Was that agreed to by the EU at some point? This sources seems on the face of it to be somewhat suspicious. Paul B (talk) 15:17, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

New paper 2015

‘Neanderthal bone flutes’: simply products of Ice Age spotted hyena scavenging activities on cave bear cubs in European cave bear dens

Its pretty sceptical.©Geni (talk) 19:07, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

  I agree, this should definitely be included DGedye (talk) 22:27, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Citations of unpublished papers by Bob Fink

As best I can make out, the following sources have not been published in an authoritative source.

Fink, Bob, 1997. "Neanderthal Flute: Oldest Musical Instrument's 4 Notes Matches 4 of Do, Re, Mi Scale". Retrieved 2006-01-22. Fink, Bob (2000). "Odds calculated against Neanderthal flute being a chance product of animal bites". Archived from the original on 2006-05-27. Retrieved 2006-05-27. Fink, Bob, 2002-3, "The Neanderthal flute and origin of the scale: fang or flint? A response," in: Ellen Hickmann, Anne Draffkorn Kilmer and Ricardo Eichmann (Eds.), Studies in Music Archaeology III, Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH., Rahden/Westf. Germany, pp 83–87. Probability analysis.

The first two are clearly unpublished. The last listing may inadvertently suggest that his "The Neanderthal flute and origin of the scale: fang or flint? A response" has been published in Studies in Music Archaeology. Checking the listing of authors presented by Verlag Marie Leidorf at http://www.vml.de/e/autoren.php?autor=F053, Mr. Fink's name does not appear, as far as I can tell. Although an article in that journal apparently cites Fink's analyses, the article itself argues this artifact is not a flute--in direct opposition to Fink's arguments from his research. Although being cited in an article in Studies in Music Archaeology may be testament to value of his independent research, the citation here should make clear the difference between Fink's analyses having been referenced vs. publication of his apparently unpublished "The Neanderthal flute and origin of the scale: fang or flint? A response".

I'll be delighted if we can ever feel more confident about the Divje Babe artifact being a flute, but at present, I think we must agree the jury's still out. In his personal research and correspondence about it posted on the web, it's clear Fink has worked hard to sort it out, and hats off for that. I don't mean to diss his work in any way, I applaud his efforts. But until his work is published in an authoritative journal governed by peer review, I suggest it's best considered as original research and at present, doesn't serve as a suitable reference in this article. Jacques Bailhé 19:58, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

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NPOV

Sorry, but i have to neutralize here a bit. Ready to talk ATBWikirictor (talk) 21:54, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

What supports the 43100 ± 700 BP date?

Reference 14 () does not give a date of 43.1k, it actually says "Initially, Lau et al. (1997) showed the flute to be > 43 ka."

The abstract for "Lau et al 1997" is at , and it says "The ESR ages limit the maximum age for the Mousterian layers and the flute to between 67 ± 10 ka and 82 ± 11 ka." (It's not completely clear if 67 ± 10 ka is a minimum, or if it's just a minimum value for the maximum.)

So in summary, maybe a minimum of 43k from carbon dating and a maximum = 82 + 11 = 93k from ESR.

Also, the National Museum of Slovenia's current page for the flute is at . It says "60,000-year-old Neanderthal flute", and then later on it says "60,000 years before present", and then even later on it says, slightly differently, "it is about 60,000-50,000 years old". It doesn't give any detailed references for those numbers.

This all comes back to the debate about whether or not it is actually a Neanderthal flute, because modern humans existed in other European locations by 43100 BP, some of them not so far away from Divje Babe, whereas there almost certainly weren't any modern humans in that part of Europe 60000 BP.

I also found by Turk et al 2018, which is a summary of all the evidence for it being a Neanderthal flute - full article behind paywall. The abstract suggests that the article is mostly about the question of the holes being human-made or not, however it also refers to "chronostratigraphic, palaeo-environmental, and archaeological contexts".

Pdorrell2 (talk) 08:59, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

References

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Hello! This is to let editors know that File:Divje Babe_flute_(Late_Pleistocene_flute).jpg, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for May 1, 2023. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2023-05-01. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you!  — Amakuru (talk) 09:59, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

The Divje Babe flute, also sometimes called the tidldibab or Neanderthal flute, is the femur of a cave bear, which is pierced by spaced holes similar to those found on a flute. The object was unearthed at Divje Babe I, a cave site near Cerkno in northwestern Slovenia in 1995, during systematic archaeological excavations in the area. It is possible that it was made by Neanderthals as a form of musical instrument, although this theory is debated by scientists: some argue that the holes in the bone were artificially made by Neanderthals, while others say they were made by carnivores. If confirmed as a musical instrument, it would be the oldest-known Paleolithic flute and musical instrument. The object is now in the collection of the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana.

Photograph credit: Petar Milošević

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Can this article please be reworked?

It's one of the most biased articles I've seen on Wikipedia. Incredibly one-sided, and thus unreliable. 178.37.192.168 (talk) 01:14, 27 October 2023 (UTC)