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Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Photo: Bone Flute Is Oldest Instrument, Study Says


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Fashioned from a griffon vulture's wing bone, this flute (shown from different angles and with finger holes enlarged in inset) may be the world's oldest instrument, a June 2009 study says.

The 40,000-year-old flute, found in a German cave, bolsters the argument that music helped modern humans bond—to the detriment of competing, presumably music-less Neanderthals—the study says.

Photograph by H. Jenen, courtesy University of Tübingen