{"id":44115,"date":"2024-06-25T18:25:41","date_gmt":"2024-06-25T16:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/016e1254-7bd7-49c5-96f8-920eacb23745"},"modified":"2024-06-25T18:36:03","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T16:36:03","slug":"this-is-probably-the-worlds-oldest-musical-instrument-and-its-made-of-vulture-bone","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/this-is-probably-the-worlds-oldest-musical-instrument-and-its-made-of-vulture-bone\/","title":{"rendered":"This is probably the world\u2019s oldest musical instrument – and it’s made of vulture bone"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 25 June 2024 at 16:25 PM<\/p>

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In 2009 an ancient flute, thought to be the world\u2019s oldest instrument, was found in a cave in Germany. <\/strong><\/p>

Made of vulture bone, the instrument dates from around the time that humans began colonising Europe, around 33,000BC. The discovery by a group of scientists has led them to believe that humans may have played music much earlier than previously thought.<\/p>

Browse our dozens of articles on musical instruments<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul>
Could this be the world’s oldest instrument?<\/h2>
Fragments of three flutes were found in the Hohle Fels<\/a><\/strong> cavern in southwest Germany by a team from T\u00fcbingen University. The near-complete vulture bone flute is 20cm long, has five finger holes and v-shaped notches that would have acted as a mouthpiece. <\/p>
<\/div><\/figure><p>Scientists think the instrument would have been held like a recorder. Conversely, though, the player would have blown across it like a flute. The other two flutes dug up by the archaeologists are made from ivory, thought to be from mammoth tusks.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-when-did-humans-first-make-music\">When did humans first make music?<\/h2><p>Finding these fragments of what appears to be the world’s oldest instrument suggests that music was an important part of day-to-day life for early modern humans some 35,000 years ago. And playing music may have helped maintain beneficial social networks. Which, in turn, may explain why modern humans survived while the Neanderthals with whom they co-existed became extinct.<\/p><p>\u2018Music was used in many kinds of social contexts: possibly religious, possibly recreational \u2013 much like we use music today in many kinds of settings,\u2019 Professor Nicholas Conard of T\u00fcbingen University told <em>BBC News<\/em>. \u2018The modern humans that came into our area already had a whole range of symbolic artefacts, figurative art, depictions of mythological creatures, many kinds of personal ornaments and also a well-developed musical tradition.\u2019<\/p><p>And there’s the fascinating tale of (what we believe to be) the world’s oldest instrument.<\/p><div class=\"wp-block-group highlight-box is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\"><ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/10-of-the-best-concertos-for-unusual-instruments\/\">10 of the best concertos for unusual instruments<\/a><\/strong><\/li><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/famous-bridges-are-becoming-musical-instruments\/\">Famous bridges are becoming musical instruments<\/a><\/strong><\/li><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/news\/researchers-develop-prosthetic-musical-instruments\/\">Researchers develop prosthetic musical instruments<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><p><strong>Top image by Getty Images<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Published: Tuesday, 25 June 2024 at 16:25 PM In 2009 an ancient flute, thought to be the world\u2019s oldest instrument, was found in a cave in Germany. Made of vulture bone, the instrument dates from around the time that humans began colonising Europe, around 33,000BC. The discovery by a group of scientists has led […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":44116,"template":"","categories":[1,17],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/06\/this-is-probably-the-worlds-oldest-musical-instrument-and-its-made-of-vulture-bone.jpg",1024,708,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/06\/this-is-probably-the-worlds-oldest-musical-instrument-and-its-made-of-vulture-bone-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/06\/this-is-probably-the-worlds-oldest-musical-instrument-and-its-made-of-vulture-bone-300x207.jpg",300,207,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/06\/this-is-probably-the-worlds-oldest-musical-instrument-and-its-made-of-vulture-bone-768x531.jpg",768,531,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/06\/this-is-probably-the-worlds-oldest-musical-instrument-and-its-made-of-vulture-bone.jpg",800,553,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/06\/this-is-probably-the-worlds-oldest-musical-instrument-and-its-made-of-vulture-bone.jpg",1024,708,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/06\/this-is-probably-the-worlds-oldest-musical-instrument-and-its-made-of-vulture-bone.jpg",1024,708,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Published: Tuesday, 25 June 2024 at 16:25 PM In 2009 an ancient flute, thought to be the world\u2019s oldest instrument, was found in a cave in Germany. Made of vulture bone, the instrument dates from around the time that humans began colonising Europe, around 33,000BC. The discovery by a group of scientists has led…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/44115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}