Integrated use of archaeological and ethnographic evidences for analysis of ancient musical instruments (materials for the educational process)

Studying the musical creativity of the Stone Age people is a relatively new direction of archaeology that faces a number of difficulties, primarily related to the identification of unusual artifacts as the oldest musical instruments. First of all, archaeologists use ethnographic data, which is sometimes limited by the comparison between the culture of ancient and modern societies or using ethnographic data as illustrative material which often leads to serious mistakes. The article raises questions about the appropriateness and extent of using ethnographic material as a source, contributing to the reconstruction of the historical past of man as well as the prospects of integrated use of ethnographic and archaeological data and development of a new direction of science – ethnoarchaeology. Considering the theoretical work on the subject, in this paper we have attempted to reconstruct the development of one of the most common groups of musical instruments – aerophones, using the currently available evidences of archeology and ethnography. The proposed approach together with other research methods will allow us to find a direct assignment of such artifacts and to evaluate the music tradition formation and development in the Stone Age. These materials can be used in educational process on disciplines of an archaeological and ethnographic structure.