Reply to "Discovwery of the World's Oldest Musical Instrument"

Thank you for the post Inda.

This is truly an amazing discovery. I never thought that humans had the ability to play a musical instrument so long ago.The craftmanship is also incredible, considering what simple tools they had at their disposal.

There is more information here

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20...rmany_20090624174002

AFP/DPD – Prehistorian historian Nicholas Conard presents the bone flute from Hohle Fels to journalists in the … by Marlowe Hood Marlowe Hood – Wed Jun 24, 1:39 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – Stone Age humans may have ripped raw meat from the bone with their teeth but they also played music, according to a study reporting the discovery of a 35,000-year-old flute, the oldest instrument known.

Found in the Ach Valley of southern Germany, the nearly intact five-hole flute was meticulously carved with stone tools from the hollow wing-bone of a giant vulture, says the study, published Thursday in the British journal Nature.

Fragments from three ivory flutes unearthed at the same site, along with nearby instruments not quite as old, suggest that humans who had then only recently migrated to the Upper Danube enjoyed a rich musical culture.

And a stunning female figurine from the same period found only a couple paces from the bone flute, reported last month, points to a broader artistic flowering.

Indeed, the area within the cave that yielded the flutes reveals a veritable artist's atelier.

There is debris from the flint tools used to chip the instruments; traces of worked bone and ivory from mammoth, horse, reindeer and bear; and burnt bone, one of the ingredients -- along with minerals, charcoal, blood and animal fats -- used by Stone Age humans for cave painting.

"We can now conclude that music played an important role in Aurignacian life in the Ach and Lone valleys," commented Nicholas Conard, a professor at the University of Tubingen and lead author of the study.