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 ...
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’
Ping
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GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
Thanks Renfield for the ping, and thanks LibWhacker for posting the topic. |
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GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
Thanks Renfield for the ping, and thanks LibWhacker for posting the topic. |
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Classical music ping...or paleoclassical anyway. Thought you might be interested in this one.
I never knew that he was saying amber lamps.. thought it was bam-ba-lam or something..
There is a huge chunk of human history missing somewhere.
Thanks, Civ
It’s music to my ears!
It’s probably hiding behind one of my double posts. [blush]
So the sounds of birds seem to fill the wood
and when the flutist plays [and]
All their voices can be heard
long past their woodland days?
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