David Simmons <[log in to unmask]> said:

>Stirling Newberry wrote:
>
>>Music predates language, this much is definitively provable.
>
>I, for one, would like to examine this proof.  While I am not aware of any
>proof that the reverse is true, it seems to me, absent musical notation or
>instruments predating language, that this would be very difficult to prove
>indeed.

I can't document this, but I did read a story in the paper a year or so ago
saying that some researcher had dug up a flute-like instrument, tuned
fairly accurately to a pentatonic scale, that was believed to predate the
the development of complex speech.

Richard, who invites you to visit his classical music site at
http://opuspocus.ca

[Check out: http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/fl-compl.htm  -Dave]