The spacing of the four holes on a fragment of a bone flute excavated

Hi bagdmba,

Thank you for your query.

In this question we are asked to find a new piece of information that will support the musicologists hypothesis that :

• diatonic musical scale was developed and used thousands of years before it was adopted by Western musicians

The basis for the above theory:

• The spacing of the four holes on a fragment of a bone flute excavated at a Neanderthal campsite is just what is required to play the third through sixth notes of the diatonic scale

What is a diatonic scale:

• the seven-note musical scale used in much of Western music since the Renaissance.

Now any piece of information that will solidify the connection between this bone flute fragment and the diatonic scale will be the right choice for supporting the proposed hypothesis.

Answer choice B says:

(B) No musical instrument that is known to have used a diatonic scale is of an earlier date than the flute found at the Neanderthal campsite.

The information given above effectively means that there is no known record of a musical instrument that was diatonic and that pre-dates the bone flute. Now is the hypothesis proposed by the musicologists concerned with proving that the found flute fragment was part of the first ever diatonic instrument? The answer is a big NO! It does not matter whether there was any instrument before the bone flute that could play the diatonic scale. All we need to establish is that the whole flute (whose fragment has been found) itself was diatonic. The information given in answer choice B does not help in doing so.

Whereas choice E says:

(E) The cave-bear leg bone used to make the Neanderthal flute would have been long enough to make a flute capable of playing a complete diatonic scale.

Now, this choice rightly solidifies the connection between the diatonic scale and the bone flute. Please note that in the prompt, we are told that the four holes could play third through the sixth note but the diatonic scale has seven notes. This means, if we factor in the information given in answer choice E, we can establish that the fragment of the bone flute found was could have been part of a longer flute which could have played all the seven notes of the diatonic scale. Hence, choice E is the correct answer.

Hope the above analysis helps!

Neeti.