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.'
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