Researchers have identified what they say are the oldest-known musical instruments in the world. The flutes, made from bird bone and mammoth ivory, come from a cave in southern Germany which contains early evidence for the occupation of Europe by modern humans - Homo sapiens. Scientists used carbon dating to show that the flutes were between 42,000 and 43,000 years old. A team led by Prof Tom Higham at Oxford University dated animal bones in the same ground layers as the flutes at Geissenkloesterle Cave in Germany's Swabian Jura. Read more
An ancient flute has been unearthed in Germany, revealing that musical traditions began earlier than previously thought. The bone instrument, which is almost completely intact, has been dated to around 33,000BC - more than 5,000 years older than the earliest musical instruments on record. Fragments of three ivory flutes were discovered at the same site, the Hohle Fels cave, near the city of Ulm. The caves would have been occupied by Stone Age hunter-gatherers who subsisted on a diet of horse and reindeer meats, fruits and berries.
Prehistoric flute in Germany is oldest known A bird-bone flute unearthed in a German cave was carved some 35,000 years ago and is the oldest handcrafted musical instrument yet discovered, archaeologists say, offering the latest evidence that early modern humans in Europe had established a complex and creative culture. A team led by University of Tuebingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard assembled the flute from 12 pieces of griffon vulture bone scattered in a small plot of the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany. Together, the pieces comprise a 22-centimeter instrument with five holes and a notched end. Conard said the flute was 35,000 years old.