Stone Age jams: Humans playing the flute for at least 35,000 years, no word yet on sax: Scientific American Blog

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Stone Age jams: Humans playing the flute for at least 35,000 years, no word yet on sax

Carved flutes dating back some 35,000 years were discovered during a dig last summer at an upper Paleolithic site in southwestern Germany, making them among—if not the—oldest documented musical instruments, reports a study published today in Nature ( Scientific American is part of the Nature Publishing Group).

These flutes, from the early Aurignacian period, show that there was "a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe," write the study authors from the University of Tübingen. The most complete, five-holed flute is made of bone from griffon vultures ...

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http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=stone-age-jams-humans-playing-the-f-2009-06-24

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=stone-age-jams-humans-playing-the-f-2009-06-24