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<< Previous   of   Next >> Associated Press  (click to enlarge) Professor Nicholas Conard of the University of Tuebingen shows the flute during a press conference in Tuebingen, Germany, on Wednesday.   ADVERTISEMENT   Related Stories • Take a hike 6/25/09   CONTACT THE HERALD Do you have a news tip? newstips@heraldnet.com | 425.339.3400   Published: Thursday, June 25, 2009 Flute, at 35,000 years old, thought to be world's oldest Associated Press BERLIN -- 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 8.6-inch instrument with five holes and a notched end. Conard said the flute was 35,000 years old. "It's unambiguously the oldest instrument in the world," Conard said this week. The reassembled instrument was too fragile to be played, but Conard worked with another academic to make a copy of it from the same type of bone and to play it and produce recordings of songs such as "The Star-Spangled Banner." Other archaeologists agreed with Conard's assessment. April Nowell, a Paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Victoria in Canada, said the flute predates previously discovered instruments "but the dates are not so much older that it's surprising or controversial." The Hohle Fels flute is more complete and appears slightly older than bone and ivory fragments from seven other flutes recovered in southern German caves and documented by Conard and his colleagues in recent years. Another flute excavated in Austria is believed to be 19,000 years old, and a group of 22 flutes found in the French Pyrenees mountains has been dated at up to 30,000 years ago. Conard's team excavated the flute in September 2008, the same month they recovered six ivory fragments from the Hohle Fels cave that form a female figurine they believe is the oldest known sculpture of the human form. Together, the flute and the figure -- found in the same layer of sediment -- suggest that modern humans had established an advanced culture in Europe 35,000 years ago, said Wil Roebroeks, an archaeologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands who didn't participate in Conard's study. Roebroeks said it's difficult to say how cognitively and socially advanced these people were. But the physical trappings of their lives -- including musical instruments, personal decorations and figurative art -- match the objects we associate with modern human behavior, Roebroeks said. "It shows that from the moment that modern humans enter Europe ... it is as modern in terms of material culture as it can get," Roebroeks said. He agreed with Conard's assertion that the flute appears to be the earliest known musical instrument in the world. READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet. To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here. Log out

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