Experts discover 35,000-year-old flute in Germany (Feature)

By Marc Herwig Jun 25, 2009, 9:18 GMT

Tuebingen, Germany - At first glance it looked like a piece of bone that had been thrown away. But what Katharina Koll found in a cave in southern Germany late last year is the world's oldest known flute.

'I picked it up, looked at it and then quickly put it aside,' said the 19-year-old, a trainee at the Institute for Archaeology in Tuebingen.

Her boss, archaeologist Nicholas Conard, said the find demonstrates the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe, more than 35,000 years ago.

The 12 fragments of the flute were discovered in Hohle Fels, a cave 140 kilometres west of the city of Munich. The cave has been the source of other Ice Age treasures over the years.

Just 70 centimetres from where the flute was discovered, archeologists last year found the oldest known figure of a human, a buxom female carved from the tusk of a mammoth.

Both the 6-centimetre-tall figurine and flute appeared to have been discarded, but archaeologists do not know why.

The 22-centimetre-long flute is carved from the wing of a griffon vulture, but in its form resembles a modern instrument. There are five finger holes, which enable the tone to be changed.

The flute cannot be played because the bottom end is missing. Even if it was complete Conard says he wouldn't allow it to be played because humidity might damage it.

Conard said he built a replica of the flute from another vulture bone. This can be be played. It sounds a bit hollow but nevertheless is similar to modern flutes.

Conard's team found fragments of three other flutes carved from the tusks of a mammoth.

'Such finds are not as rare as we thought. Music played an important role in this period,' the archaeologist said.

The music could have helped established social networks as far back as 35,000 years,' he said. That, in turn, is possibly a decisive advantage that modern humans had over the Neanderthal.

The finds, made in the Swabian Alps, have reignited a discussion about whether this area is the cradle of European culture.

While acknowledging the finds made in the region are the oldest known to man, he does not rule out that similar treasure exist elsewhere.

'It's possible that music and performing arts were practiced in other regions, but nobody has bothered to excavate the objects there,' he said.

It was also possible that objects found in the chalky Swabian caves were better preserved than elsewhere, said Conard, whose findings were published in the science journal Nature.

The flutes and other objects found in the cave are to go on display in the city of Stuttgart from September 18 in an exhibition entitled 'Ice Age, Art and Culture.'