Bone Flute Is Oldest Instrument, Study Says

James Owen

for National Geographic News

June 24, 2009

A vulture akbaba-bone flute discovered in a European cave is likely the world's oldest recognizable musical instrument and pushes back geriye itmek humanity insanlık's musical roots, a new study says.

Found with fragments parça of mammoth-ivory fildişi flutes, the 40,000-year-old artifact el yapımı also adds to evidence that music may have given the first European modern humans a strategic advantage over Neanderthals, researchers say.

The bone-flute pieces were found in 2008 at Hohle Fels, a Stone Age taş devri cave in southern Germany, according to the study,led yürütmek, by archaeologist NicholasConard of the University of Tübingen in Germany.

With five finger holes and a v-shaped v şeklinde mouthpiece, the almost complete bird-bone flute—made from the naturally hollow delik wing kanat bone of a griffon vulture—is just 0.3 inch (8 millimeters)wide geniş and was originally about 13 inches (34 centimeters) long.

Flute fragments found earlier at the nearby site of Geissenklösterle have been dated to around 35,000 years ago.

The newfound flutes, though, "date to the very period of settlement in the region by modern humans ... about 40,000 years ago," Conard said.

The mammoth-ivory flutes would have been especially challenging zorlayıcı to make, the team said.

Using only stone tools, the flute maker would have had to split muayene etmek a section of curved kavisli ivory along its natural grain damar. The two halves would then have been hollowed out oymak,carve oymak, and fitted together içiçe geçmek with an airtight hava geçirmez seal damga.

Music as a Weapon?

Music may have been one of the cultural accomplishments başarı that gave the first European modern-human (Homo sapiens)settlers göçebe an advantage over their now extinct nesli tükenmiş Neanderthal-human (Homo neanderthalis) cousins, according to the team.

The ancient tarih öncesi flutes are evidence for an early musical tradition that likely muhtemelen helped modern humans communicate and form biçimlendirmek tighter kısa social bonds bağ, the researchers argue.

Think how important music is for us," Conard said. "Whether it's at church, a party, or just for fun, you can see how powerful music can be. People often hear a song and cry, or feel great joy neşe or sorrow keder. All of those kinds of emotions help bond people together."

Music may therefore have been important to maintaining sürdürmek and strengthening güçlendirme Stone Age social networks ağ among modern humans, allowing for greater societal organization and strategizing, said Conard, whose study appears today on the Web site of the journal Nature.