"Yes I remember the flutes!"
Posted on 05/25/2012 6:43:09 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Researchers have identified what they say are the oldest-known musical instruments in the world.
The flutes, made from bird bone and mammoth ivory, come from a cave in southern Germany which contains early evidence for the occupation of Europe by modern humans - Homo sapiens.
Scientists used carbon dating to show that the flutes were between 42,000 and 43,000 years old.
The findings are described in the Journal of Human Evolution.
A team led by Prof Tom Higham at Oxford University dated animal bones in the same ground layers as the flutes at Geissenkloesterle Cave in Germany's Swabian Jura.
Prof Nick Conard, the Tuebingen University researcher who identified the previous record-holder for oldest instrument in 2009, was excavator at the site.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
“Music hath charms....”
Doc, What do you think?
"Yes I remember the flutes!"
>>> Earliest music instruments found (42,000 year-old flutes)
However, music exists much longer than that.
That is because researchers can not find the evidence of ‘armpit music’s existence’.
No no no, that cannot possibly be a real album cover.
I wonder if they were used for music - as the article states - or if they were used in hunting where you could see them being immensely beneficial.
That’s actually an interesting question, now that I think about it. Did music evolve from leisure to battle, or from battle to leisure?
I could see it going either way.
Fascinating! Especially the part where the paleoentologists and archeologists conjecture that music provided the long term advantage the Cro-Magnons had over the Neandrethals. Sounds like this study was sponsored by your local symphony orchestra!
I especially found this statement amusing:
Music could have played a role in the maintenance of larger social networks, which may have helped our species expand their territory at the expense of the more conservative Neanderthals.
This sounds like something Public Radio would put out.
Wow......what was the guy’s name who played this - “Og G”?
I think he might have reconstructed it because it was in perfect pitch when he played "America the Beautiful."
That gives me chills! It is one of the mysteries I often ponder — when & how did music start?
Did it start with singing? With drums? Flutes? Horns?
What were the earliest tunes? As this article asks, was it for hunting, for war, for worship, for entertainment?
And then the next question: when did early people start writing it down? I remember reading about an ancient pot found in Greece that had early musical notation written on it.
I like to look at the sources of the hymns we sing in church. Many of them date from the 1800s and and great many more from the 1960s-1970s. Seldom do I see one that dates from the 1500s, and that is the earliest I’ve seen. The early ones are generally sung at Christmas.
Jes’ sayin’
For the music video go to ebaumsworld and call up "Whoa Black Betty Amber Lamps". I laugh every time I see it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.