Bower, Bruce. “Chinese Dig Sound from Ancient Flute.” Science News, vol. 156, no. 13, 25 Sept. 1999, p. 197. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4011780. Accessed 2 Feb. 2017.
Summarize: This source informs the reader of an ancient flute that was found in a grave site in China. It also helps the reader understand how the flute impacted social connections because it was a mark of social status. The article gives information about the time period of Agricultural China, around 9,000 years ago, by detailing how the society was formed back then, with complex social structures and burying the more influential dead with gifts such as flutes.
Evaluate: This source was useful to learn how the whistle impacted social structures in ancient people by forming a complex social pyramid which can be displayed by the amount a person was buried with, a flute indicating a higher status. This source was not the best because of its short length, but it gave plenty of detailed information that is valuable to my project. It was reliable because it gave the good rankings of the professors and scientists who provided information. It was not biased because it was only giving information backed up by sufficient evidence and no opinions were involved. Its goal is only to inform the reader about what the ancient flute shows about early agricultural civilizations’ social structure.
Reflect: This source will help me fill the gap in my research about the further impacts of the whistle on humanity because it shows that the ancient flute impacted ancient people in their culture, since burial grounds where it was found are a very important place where culture is seen, so it is helpful to complete this claim. It helps me argue that it impacted them by forming a social structure in which the individuals of a higher status are buried with lavish gifts such as the intricate flutes found here. The threshold that this relates to is agriculture because it dates back to an early agricultural settlement where they were just forming a social pyramid. It helps me understand archaeology because they dug it up at a burial site and used context clues to find out whether or not the person was upper-class. It has changed how I used to think that whistles were created by and for everyone, but now I realize that they were an important object that few could possess.
Broad, William J. “Complex Whistles Found to Play Key Roles in Inca and Maya Life.” The New York Times, New York Times Company, 29 Mar. 1988, www.nytimes.com/1988/03/29/science/complex-whistles-found-to-play-key-roles-in-inca-and-maya-life.html?pagewanted=all. Accessed 5 Feb. 2017.
Summarize: This article is about how in the ancient Mayan culture, the whistle/flute was very important in their culture. They used it for religious rituals and even buried it with their dead because it was valuable to have in the afterlife. The main point of the article is to inform the reader of how advances in studying the ancient artifacts found have improved enough to guess with certainty that the whistle are not the simple toys we previously thought them to be.
Evaluate: This source is very useful because it shows a major human impact in a whole separate category of the ritual and religion in the culture. It is also a very good source because it is long and thorough, and its whole reason to be written perfectly suits my project. It is reliable because it cites multiple reliable and qualified people as well as giving detailed information as to the artifacts found and what can be discerned from them specifically. It is an objective source because it show both sides of what researchers say could be true but it gives the most probable evidence as its main idea. Its goal is to show the reader the advances in what we believe ancient whistles were really for.
Reflect: This source was helpful because it helped me finish answering my question of human impacts of the ancient whistle. It helps me understand collective learning because it shows how ancient whistle-makers were so skilled by learning how to make whistles for a specific purpose and improving on them over time. It also mainly deals with archaeology since it discusses the artifacts and how they could tell what they were used for. It shaped my argument by showing that the whistle impacted many religious rituals in ancient cultures, and I can use it to show an important human impact. It has changed my thinking of whistles to see how important they were that ancient people focused on making them so complex to fill the purposes of their culture.
Hall, Loretta. “Whistle.” How Products are Made, Advameg, www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Whistle.html. Accessed 6 Dec. 2016.
Summary: This source gives an overview on the whistle. It describes the materials used in the modern version of this product as well as in its past versions, as well as how the many types of whistles have evolved over time. It also gives detailed information about the many uses of the whistle in practical purposes and for entertainment; there is also insight into the whistle’s historical purposes, such as spiritual, and up to the modern times, like in machinery and sports. This source also provides a lot of information about the actual mechanics of the whistle, how it works, and how they are made in modern times.
Evaluation: This source is very useful because it gives an overview of the whistle. While it gives a much broader range of information than other sources, the information itself is far from general because there are detailed explanations and examples for each topic it covers. The source is reliable because it lists its sources for the information it covers as well as having sufficient and believable proof and evidence for each piece of information it gives. Also, the source is not biased because it is simply covering the topic from a range of sources and does not present any opinions; it is also objective because it does not favor any one kind, brand, or maker of whistles. The main goal of the author in writing this article was to inform the reader about many aspects of the whistle, from its origins to its many uses.
Reflection: This source was helpful because it answered the question of the material origins of the modern version of this topic, as well as answering partly and alluding to more research questions about its impact on humanity in modern and ancient times. Because this source mainly addressed the modern form of the whistle and its uses in the modern world in machines and other practical uses, it covers the threshold 8, the Modern Revolution. The modern form of the whistle was also invented in this era. It also covers threshold 3, new chemical elements, because it discusses the metals used to make the whistle. The extensive information provided about the uses for whistles also gives me a new understanding of its large impact on humanity. The discipline this source mainly focuses on is organology because it covers the mechanics of the whistle, which is in the category of a woodwind instrument, how it produces sound, and how it has evolved into many different forms. I can use the information this source has provided to outline the definition, uses, and materials of the modern type of whistle.
Lozano, Ethan, et al. “Wikileaks & Whistleblowing.” Stanford University, edited by Alex Aiken, 1 June 2011, cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/cs181/projects/2010-11/WikiLeaks/background.html. Accessed 2 Feb. 2017. Summarize: This source is about informing the reader about the term “whistleblower”. It not only defines the word (by saying that it is a person or organization that exposes most likely damaging information about another organization), but it also it shows the connotations of the word and how it can be positive in making world governments honest, transparent, and allowing freedom of information; it also shows the negative connotations of the word such as the legal actions taken against many people who have exposed information. It also explains the impact of whistleblowing on society by saying that it helps both the United States and countries around the world expose harmful practices, for which many are regarded heroes in helping change organizations for the better.
Evaluate: This source is very useful because it shows an impact on society that from earlier England with its whistleblowing policemen to today’s people who expose harmful practices, the whistle was an instrumental object in helping this happen. It is one of the best in this bibliography because it shows a whole new side to the whistle’s impacts by showing how it has affected the government and other business practices. It is a reliable source because all of its information has a cited, annotated bibliography, and it comes from an esteemed university that is very credible. It is not biased because it shows both the good side and the bad effects of whistleblowing without sharing any political opinions, and its goal was simply to inform the reader of the impacts and use of the term “whistleblower”.
Reflect: This source was helpful to me because it showed a completely new whole aspect of the whistle which has been very influential in helping make business practices more safe and transparent. It answers the question of human impacts, and it also helps me understand the Threshold of Collective Learning because the whistle is used to show a spread of information which is used to improve an organization.It also deals with anthropology because anthropology relates to culture and a large part of today’s culture revolves around government and efforts to improve it. This shapes my argument by showing that the whistle has been used to expose and warn others of danger in not only real life but also in government and business. I can use it to show that it has grown as a human impact into something that encompasses governments around the world, and it has really helped to show me how one small use of the instrument to catch a criminal could morph into something so large and impactful as spreading information to fix corruption and other wrongdoings in the world’s governments.
Lund, Cajsa. A Medieval Tongue-(Lip-)and-Duct Flute. The Galpin Society Journal. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/841474. Accessed 5 Dec. 2016.
Summary: The author of this article gives evidence about a flute carved out of a sheep’s bone from the medieval era in Europe. She also writes background information about the more available materials, such as plant stalks and wood, that were most likely much more commonly made, but were unable to be naturally preserved. The flute the author examines was an uncommon type of flute because all evidence around it shows that there is no block to direct the air flow, so the player must use a lip instead. Since this is an uncommon flute in both its material and its type for the area it was found in, the author suggests that there are many more undiscovered types of flutes than we thought previously.
Evaluation: This source was useful because it gave many facts about not only the materials used in the flute the author was studying, but also conjectures about other materials used in the same time and place as that one. Despite the fact that often times in archaeology, you must make guesses about the past, all of the guesses presented in the article were backed up with sufficient evidence. This source is reliable because of the evidence of the great amount of research about archaeology put into it, but the author may have been biased. She seemed to have made a conclusion about the use of the flute before it was run through many tests, which could have affected the objectivity of her writing. Despite this, the main goal of showing that types of whistles and flutes are dispersed widely throughout the world was effectively portrayed in this source.
Reflection: This source has provided me with a lot of useful information about one of the disciplines i chose, which is archaeology. It showed that in order to find clues about the history of whistles, archaeological artifacts must be carefully examined based on their properties and their surroundings they were found in. It answers the question of the biological origins of my topic because of the information it gave about the materials used to make early whistles, which I will use to show the evolution of how whistles are made. It also helps because it gave information about the threshold 7 of Agriculture by showing how people used the resources available to them and used them to their advantage instead of wasting resources. This source changed my perspective of the whistle because it showed me that there is such a wide variety of whistles and their origins, so I can use this to show how separate people created them in different areas of the world and how their evolution into the modern whistle took place.
Oakley, Doug. “Train engineers keep chugging despite complaints.” East Bay Times, Bay Area Newsgroup, 22 July 2007, www.eastbaytimes.com/2007/07/22/train-engineers-keep-chugging-despite-complaints/. Accessed 7 Feb. 2017. Summarize: This source describes how train whistles are imperative to the safety of railroad tracks and how silencing them costs many accidents and injuries. Its main argument is that train whistles are very important to the safety of the surrounding community and while they can be noisy, they should not be ignored or shut down because they can save lives. It gives statistics about the accidents prevented with whistles and insight from engineers who work at train companies who want to prevent collisions.
Evaluate: This source is useful because it gives details about the impacts of the whistle (specifically the train whistle) in modern times. It is about average compared to my other sources since it is on a quite specific topic, but it is very detailed information which comes straight from the companies doing the research, which shows that it is reliable. However, it may be biased because it has a clear opinion that train whistles are very important, and its goal is clearly to convince the reader of this.
Reflect: This source is very helpful because it fills the gap of the modern impacts, especially in machinery, of the whistle. It helps me understand the threshold of the Modern revolution because it is used with machinery created at that time, trains, to help keep it safe as other technologies advance. It does not help me understand any of my chosen disciplines since they are mainly concerning music and culture, but it still shapes my argument by showing that whistles are in a very important use today and can save lives. It has helped me see how despite their surrounding communities’ complaints, train whistles are very important and reduce fatalities by a lot.
Owen, James. “Bone Flute Is Oldest Instrument, Study Says.” National Geographic, edited by National Geographic News, National Geographic Society, news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090624-bone-flute-oldest-instrument.html. Accessed 7 Dec. 2016.
Summary: This article informs the reader about an ancient whistle that was discovered recently in Europe that dates around 40,000 years old. The sources that the information in this article was gained from also used this discovery to make educated guesses about the settlement of early humans in this area, as well as how music gave them an advantage over the neanderthals because it formed social connections. Most of this source covers details about the bone whistle itself, since it is the oldest whistle found, being around 40,000 years old; the article also mentions the artifacts surrounding it, such as mammoth ivory decorations, in order to get a better understanding of the lifestyle of these early humans as well as to guess if the were neanderthals or not (most likely they were not).
Evaluate: This source was very useful because it gave information about the specific origins of the first known whistle as well as details about it such as its material and type. It is similar to my first source about another ancient flute, but it provides different information because it also goes into more about what it shows about early humanity as well as the impact of music on early humans. This article is also a reliable source because it backs up all its facts with evidence and a source that they found it from, which are all credible people and institutes. It is objective and unbiased because it only tells with certainty the facts that there is sufficient evidence for and expresses the author’s concerns when there is another older whistle found, but without evidence to prove its use. The author wrote this to inform the reader about a recently discovered whistle and the impacts instruments had on early humans.
Reflect: The source was helpful because it goes deeper into the question of the origin material and place of the whistle; the question of music’s impact on humanity was not its focus, but it still provided relevant details about this as well. This connects to threshold 6 of Collective Learning because it shows the development of early humans and how their society was forming, which also reaches into the time period of the next threshold, Agriculture. This source helps me describe and understand both the earliest origins of the whistle and the early humans who made it and their lifestyle, so the article will help in many ways and with both research questions. It has also helped me understand how ancient of an instrument the whistle really was and how important it was in helping the modern species of human to thrive.
University of Cambridge. “Structure and Composition of Bone.” DoITPoMS, edited by University of Cambridge, England & Wales Creative Commons, 2015, www.doitpoms.ac.uk/tlplib/bones/structure.php. Accessed 8 Dec. 2016.
Summary: The main point of this source was to inform the reader about many of the details about bones. It included information about the strength of the bone because of the way it is shaped, and it even went so deep into the chemistry that it showed evidence for why the bone itself is strong on a molecular level because of the tiny structures within it. The article also goes into depth about the ratios and amounts of each material that make up the bone as well as the chemical formulas and elements in these.
Evaluate: This source was useful because it explained a lot of detailed information, even past my understanding of chemistry; this shows that there is definitely a very large scope of the information in it, but it goes into details about the same subject rather than many subjects as some of my other sources do. Therefore, it is not as useful because it only covers one topic, but it still covers that topic much better than any other source. It is also a reliable source because it is from a reliable university’s website. You can also tell by the skillful way it is written that the author clearly knows their facts well and used many reliable references. It is not biased because the only information it provides is known facts, which is also its main goal.
Reflect: This source was helpful in answering the question of the origins of the most commonly found type of whistle; since I already knew the time and place of its origin, I only needed the chemical origins that this source provided. The thresholds this relates to are threshold 2- New Chemical Elements, because it is what enabled all these elements that combine to form bone, and threshold 5- Life on Earth, because life is what enabled bone to form and grow using those elements provided to the Earth, otherwise the material of bone could never occur naturally. Though it does not relate to one of my chosen disciplines, it still shapes my argument because it provides the basis of information about the chemical origins of the whistle which answers question 1. This means that I can use it to show the chemical compounds in both the modern and the ancient whistle now that I know what is in the bone whistles. This source has made me believe that the origins and compound in this organic material are far more complex than I previously thought, and it gives me a new awe for the true complexity of what life creates.
Wilson, Thomas. Prehistoric Art; Or the Origin of Art as Manifested in the Works of Prehistoric Man. Google Play ed., Washington Government Printing Office, 1898.
Summarize: This book is about the art forms of prehistoric people, mainly in the paleolithic era and after. It focuses mostly on musical instruments such as drums and whistles, but it does go into sculptures and other art for some of the book. Its main point is to show that art helped humans develop and how music specifically showed that advancement in human complexity. It also uses so many details and explanations of different examples of art that it is a good showcase of the extreme diversity of these art forms and instruments in location and in form.
Evaluate: This source is very useful because it helps me give background information about the origins of my topic such as where they could come from and what types there are. It is a much more thorough source than any others so far because it is a book that contains so many examples. It is reliable because it has many figures (images) that demonstrate the examples, and it also has so many detailed examples. It is not biased because it only gives facts and educated reasons for why they made a certain inference. This source’s goal is to show the diversity of ancient art while showing how it has shown advancements in humans.
Reflect: This source was very helpful because it gives me lots of detailed background information about the origin of the whistle. It helps me understand collective learning because it shows the advancements of humanity’s musical technology and how art helped humans develop. It helps me understand archaeology because it uses many examples of artifacts uncovered by archaeologists and uses them to make inferences using their historical context. It helps me fill the gaps by giving me background information and context so it is easier to understand, and it has made me realize how extremely diverse the ancient whistles were with so many examples from different areas of the earth.
Summarize: This source informs the reader of an ancient flute that was found in a grave site in China. It also helps the reader understand how the flute impacted social connections because it was a mark of social status. The article gives information about the time period of Agricultural China, around 9,000 years ago, by detailing how the society was formed back then, with complex social structures and burying the more influential dead with gifts such as flutes.
Evaluate: This source was useful to learn how the whistle impacted social structures in ancient people by forming a complex social pyramid which can be displayed by the amount a person was buried with, a flute indicating a higher status. This source was not the best because of its short length, but it gave plenty of detailed information that is valuable to my project. It was reliable because it gave the good rankings of the professors and scientists who provided information. It was not biased because it was only giving information backed up by sufficient evidence and no opinions were involved. Its goal is only to inform the reader about what the ancient flute shows about early agricultural civilizations’ social structure.
Reflect: This source will help me fill the gap in my research about the further impacts of the whistle on humanity because it shows that the ancient flute impacted ancient people in their culture, since burial grounds where it was found are a very important place where culture is seen, so it is helpful to complete this claim. It helps me argue that it impacted them by forming a social structure in which the individuals of a higher status are buried with lavish gifts such as the intricate flutes found here. The threshold that this relates to is agriculture because it dates back to an early agricultural settlement where they were just forming a social pyramid. It helps me understand archaeology because they dug it up at a burial site and used context clues to find out whether or not the person was upper-class. It has changed how I used to think that whistles were created by and for everyone, but now I realize that they were an important object that few could possess.
Broad, William J. “Complex Whistles Found to Play Key Roles in Inca and Maya Life.” The New York Times, New York Times Company, 29 Mar. 1988, www.nytimes.com/1988/03/29/science/complex-whistles-found-to-play-key-roles-in-inca-and-maya-life.html?pagewanted=all. Accessed 5 Feb. 2017.
Summarize: This article is about how in the ancient Mayan culture, the whistle/flute was very important in their culture. They used it for religious rituals and even buried it with their dead because it was valuable to have in the afterlife. The main point of the article is to inform the reader of how advances in studying the ancient artifacts found have improved enough to guess with certainty that the whistle are not the simple toys we previously thought them to be.
Evaluate: This source is very useful because it shows a major human impact in a whole separate category of the ritual and religion in the culture. It is also a very good source because it is long and thorough, and its whole reason to be written perfectly suits my project. It is reliable because it cites multiple reliable and qualified people as well as giving detailed information as to the artifacts found and what can be discerned from them specifically. It is an objective source because it show both sides of what researchers say could be true but it gives the most probable evidence as its main idea. Its goal is to show the reader the advances in what we believe ancient whistles were really for.
Reflect: This source was helpful because it helped me finish answering my question of human impacts of the ancient whistle. It helps me understand collective learning because it shows how ancient whistle-makers were so skilled by learning how to make whistles for a specific purpose and improving on them over time. It also mainly deals with archaeology since it discusses the artifacts and how they could tell what they were used for. It shaped my argument by showing that the whistle impacted many religious rituals in ancient cultures, and I can use it to show an important human impact. It has changed my thinking of whistles to see how important they were that ancient people focused on making them so complex to fill the purposes of their culture.
Hall, Loretta. “Whistle.” How Products are Made, Advameg, www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Whistle.html. Accessed 6 Dec. 2016.
Summary: This source gives an overview on the whistle. It describes the materials used in the modern version of this product as well as in its past versions, as well as how the many types of whistles have evolved over time. It also gives detailed information about the many uses of the whistle in practical purposes and for entertainment; there is also insight into the whistle’s historical purposes, such as spiritual, and up to the modern times, like in machinery and sports. This source also provides a lot of information about the actual mechanics of the whistle, how it works, and how they are made in modern times.
Evaluation: This source is very useful because it gives an overview of the whistle. While it gives a much broader range of information than other sources, the information itself is far from general because there are detailed explanations and examples for each topic it covers. The source is reliable because it lists its sources for the information it covers as well as having sufficient and believable proof and evidence for each piece of information it gives. Also, the source is not biased because it is simply covering the topic from a range of sources and does not present any opinions; it is also objective because it does not favor any one kind, brand, or maker of whistles. The main goal of the author in writing this article was to inform the reader about many aspects of the whistle, from its origins to its many uses.
Reflection: This source was helpful because it answered the question of the material origins of the modern version of this topic, as well as answering partly and alluding to more research questions about its impact on humanity in modern and ancient times. Because this source mainly addressed the modern form of the whistle and its uses in the modern world in machines and other practical uses, it covers the threshold 8, the Modern Revolution. The modern form of the whistle was also invented in this era. It also covers threshold 3, new chemical elements, because it discusses the metals used to make the whistle. The extensive information provided about the uses for whistles also gives me a new understanding of its large impact on humanity. The discipline this source mainly focuses on is organology because it covers the mechanics of the whistle, which is in the category of a woodwind instrument, how it produces sound, and how it has evolved into many different forms. I can use the information this source has provided to outline the definition, uses, and materials of the modern type of whistle.
Lozano, Ethan, et al. “Wikileaks & Whistleblowing.” Stanford University, edited by Alex Aiken, 1 June 2011, cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/cs181/projects/2010-11/WikiLeaks/background.html. Accessed 2 Feb. 2017. Summarize: This source is about informing the reader about the term “whistleblower”. It not only defines the word (by saying that it is a person or organization that exposes most likely damaging information about another organization), but it also it shows the connotations of the word and how it can be positive in making world governments honest, transparent, and allowing freedom of information; it also shows the negative connotations of the word such as the legal actions taken against many people who have exposed information. It also explains the impact of whistleblowing on society by saying that it helps both the United States and countries around the world expose harmful practices, for which many are regarded heroes in helping change organizations for the better.
Evaluate: This source is very useful because it shows an impact on society that from earlier England with its whistleblowing policemen to today’s people who expose harmful practices, the whistle was an instrumental object in helping this happen. It is one of the best in this bibliography because it shows a whole new side to the whistle’s impacts by showing how it has affected the government and other business practices. It is a reliable source because all of its information has a cited, annotated bibliography, and it comes from an esteemed university that is very credible. It is not biased because it shows both the good side and the bad effects of whistleblowing without sharing any political opinions, and its goal was simply to inform the reader of the impacts and use of the term “whistleblower”.
Reflect: This source was helpful to me because it showed a completely new whole aspect of the whistle which has been very influential in helping make business practices more safe and transparent. It answers the question of human impacts, and it also helps me understand the Threshold of Collective Learning because the whistle is used to show a spread of information which is used to improve an organization.It also deals with anthropology because anthropology relates to culture and a large part of today’s culture revolves around government and efforts to improve it. This shapes my argument by showing that the whistle has been used to expose and warn others of danger in not only real life but also in government and business. I can use it to show that it has grown as a human impact into something that encompasses governments around the world, and it has really helped to show me how one small use of the instrument to catch a criminal could morph into something so large and impactful as spreading information to fix corruption and other wrongdoings in the world’s governments.
Lund, Cajsa. A Medieval Tongue-(Lip-)and-Duct Flute. The Galpin Society Journal. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/841474. Accessed 5 Dec. 2016.
Summary: The author of this article gives evidence about a flute carved out of a sheep’s bone from the medieval era in Europe. She also writes background information about the more available materials, such as plant stalks and wood, that were most likely much more commonly made, but were unable to be naturally preserved. The flute the author examines was an uncommon type of flute because all evidence around it shows that there is no block to direct the air flow, so the player must use a lip instead. Since this is an uncommon flute in both its material and its type for the area it was found in, the author suggests that there are many more undiscovered types of flutes than we thought previously.
Evaluation: This source was useful because it gave many facts about not only the materials used in the flute the author was studying, but also conjectures about other materials used in the same time and place as that one. Despite the fact that often times in archaeology, you must make guesses about the past, all of the guesses presented in the article were backed up with sufficient evidence. This source is reliable because of the evidence of the great amount of research about archaeology put into it, but the author may have been biased. She seemed to have made a conclusion about the use of the flute before it was run through many tests, which could have affected the objectivity of her writing. Despite this, the main goal of showing that types of whistles and flutes are dispersed widely throughout the world was effectively portrayed in this source.
Reflection: This source has provided me with a lot of useful information about one of the disciplines i chose, which is archaeology. It showed that in order to find clues about the history of whistles, archaeological artifacts must be carefully examined based on their properties and their surroundings they were found in. It answers the question of the biological origins of my topic because of the information it gave about the materials used to make early whistles, which I will use to show the evolution of how whistles are made. It also helps because it gave information about the threshold 7 of Agriculture by showing how people used the resources available to them and used them to their advantage instead of wasting resources. This source changed my perspective of the whistle because it showed me that there is such a wide variety of whistles and their origins, so I can use this to show how separate people created them in different areas of the world and how their evolution into the modern whistle took place.
Oakley, Doug. “Train engineers keep chugging despite complaints.” East Bay Times, Bay Area Newsgroup, 22 July 2007, www.eastbaytimes.com/2007/07/22/train-engineers-keep-chugging-despite-complaints/. Accessed 7 Feb. 2017. Summarize: This source describes how train whistles are imperative to the safety of railroad tracks and how silencing them costs many accidents and injuries. Its main argument is that train whistles are very important to the safety of the surrounding community and while they can be noisy, they should not be ignored or shut down because they can save lives. It gives statistics about the accidents prevented with whistles and insight from engineers who work at train companies who want to prevent collisions.
Evaluate: This source is useful because it gives details about the impacts of the whistle (specifically the train whistle) in modern times. It is about average compared to my other sources since it is on a quite specific topic, but it is very detailed information which comes straight from the companies doing the research, which shows that it is reliable. However, it may be biased because it has a clear opinion that train whistles are very important, and its goal is clearly to convince the reader of this.
Reflect: This source is very helpful because it fills the gap of the modern impacts, especially in machinery, of the whistle. It helps me understand the threshold of the Modern revolution because it is used with machinery created at that time, trains, to help keep it safe as other technologies advance. It does not help me understand any of my chosen disciplines since they are mainly concerning music and culture, but it still shapes my argument by showing that whistles are in a very important use today and can save lives. It has helped me see how despite their surrounding communities’ complaints, train whistles are very important and reduce fatalities by a lot.
Owen, James. “Bone Flute Is Oldest Instrument, Study Says.” National Geographic, edited by National Geographic News, National Geographic Society, news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090624-bone-flute-oldest-instrument.html. Accessed 7 Dec. 2016.
Summary: This article informs the reader about an ancient whistle that was discovered recently in Europe that dates around 40,000 years old. The sources that the information in this article was gained from also used this discovery to make educated guesses about the settlement of early humans in this area, as well as how music gave them an advantage over the neanderthals because it formed social connections. Most of this source covers details about the bone whistle itself, since it is the oldest whistle found, being around 40,000 years old; the article also mentions the artifacts surrounding it, such as mammoth ivory decorations, in order to get a better understanding of the lifestyle of these early humans as well as to guess if the were neanderthals or not (most likely they were not).
Evaluate: This source was very useful because it gave information about the specific origins of the first known whistle as well as details about it such as its material and type. It is similar to my first source about another ancient flute, but it provides different information because it also goes into more about what it shows about early humanity as well as the impact of music on early humans. This article is also a reliable source because it backs up all its facts with evidence and a source that they found it from, which are all credible people and institutes. It is objective and unbiased because it only tells with certainty the facts that there is sufficient evidence for and expresses the author’s concerns when there is another older whistle found, but without evidence to prove its use. The author wrote this to inform the reader about a recently discovered whistle and the impacts instruments had on early humans.
Reflect: The source was helpful because it goes deeper into the question of the origin material and place of the whistle; the question of music’s impact on humanity was not its focus, but it still provided relevant details about this as well. This connects to threshold 6 of Collective Learning because it shows the development of early humans and how their society was forming, which also reaches into the time period of the next threshold, Agriculture. This source helps me describe and understand both the earliest origins of the whistle and the early humans who made it and their lifestyle, so the article will help in many ways and with both research questions. It has also helped me understand how ancient of an instrument the whistle really was and how important it was in helping the modern species of human to thrive.
University of Cambridge. “Structure and Composition of Bone.” DoITPoMS, edited by University of Cambridge, England & Wales Creative Commons, 2015, www.doitpoms.ac.uk/tlplib/bones/structure.php. Accessed 8 Dec. 2016.
Summary: The main point of this source was to inform the reader about many of the details about bones. It included information about the strength of the bone because of the way it is shaped, and it even went so deep into the chemistry that it showed evidence for why the bone itself is strong on a molecular level because of the tiny structures within it. The article also goes into depth about the ratios and amounts of each material that make up the bone as well as the chemical formulas and elements in these.
Evaluate: This source was useful because it explained a lot of detailed information, even past my understanding of chemistry; this shows that there is definitely a very large scope of the information in it, but it goes into details about the same subject rather than many subjects as some of my other sources do. Therefore, it is not as useful because it only covers one topic, but it still covers that topic much better than any other source. It is also a reliable source because it is from a reliable university’s website. You can also tell by the skillful way it is written that the author clearly knows their facts well and used many reliable references. It is not biased because the only information it provides is known facts, which is also its main goal.
Reflect: This source was helpful in answering the question of the origins of the most commonly found type of whistle; since I already knew the time and place of its origin, I only needed the chemical origins that this source provided. The thresholds this relates to are threshold 2- New Chemical Elements, because it is what enabled all these elements that combine to form bone, and threshold 5- Life on Earth, because life is what enabled bone to form and grow using those elements provided to the Earth, otherwise the material of bone could never occur naturally. Though it does not relate to one of my chosen disciplines, it still shapes my argument because it provides the basis of information about the chemical origins of the whistle which answers question 1. This means that I can use it to show the chemical compounds in both the modern and the ancient whistle now that I know what is in the bone whistles. This source has made me believe that the origins and compound in this organic material are far more complex than I previously thought, and it gives me a new awe for the true complexity of what life creates.
Wilson, Thomas. Prehistoric Art; Or the Origin of Art as Manifested in the Works of Prehistoric Man. Google Play ed., Washington Government Printing Office, 1898.
Summarize: This book is about the art forms of prehistoric people, mainly in the paleolithic era and after. It focuses mostly on musical instruments such as drums and whistles, but it does go into sculptures and other art for some of the book. Its main point is to show that art helped humans develop and how music specifically showed that advancement in human complexity. It also uses so many details and explanations of different examples of art that it is a good showcase of the extreme diversity of these art forms and instruments in location and in form.
Evaluate: This source is very useful because it helps me give background information about the origins of my topic such as where they could come from and what types there are. It is a much more thorough source than any others so far because it is a book that contains so many examples. It is reliable because it has many figures (images) that demonstrate the examples, and it also has so many detailed examples. It is not biased because it only gives facts and educated reasons for why they made a certain inference. This source’s goal is to show the diversity of ancient art while showing how it has shown advancements in humans.
Reflect: This source was very helpful because it gives me lots of detailed background information about the origin of the whistle. It helps me understand collective learning because it shows the advancements of humanity’s musical technology and how art helped humans develop. It helps me understand archaeology because it uses many examples of artifacts uncovered by archaeologists and uses them to make inferences using their historical context. It helps me fill the gaps by giving me background information and context so it is easier to understand, and it has made me realize how extremely diverse the ancient whistles were with so many examples from different areas of the earth.