New research has found what is considered to be the oldest-known musical instruments in the world - flutes made from mammoth ivory and bird bone. The instruments come from a cave in southern Germany, where scientists found early evidence of the occupation of Europe by Homo sapiens, a.k.a. modern humans. Using carbon dating, scientists determined that the flutes were between 42,000 and 43,000 years old. The findings are detailed in the Journal of Human Evolution.
Professor Tom Higham at Oxford University and his team dated animal bones in the same ground layers as the flutes in Germany's Swabian Jura Geissenkloesterle Cave. Tuebingen University researcher Nick Conard, who identified the previous world-record oldest instrument back in 2009, was excavator at the site.
"These results are consistent with a hypothesis we made several years ago that the Danube River was a key corridor for the movement of humans and technological innovations into central Europe between 40,000-45,000 years ago," said Conard, as cited by BBC News. "Geissenkloesterle is one of several caves in the region that has produced important examples of personal ornaments, figurative art, mythical imagery and musical instruments."
According to experts, musical instruments may have been used for religious rituals or for recreational purposes. Some researchers even said music may have been one of a set of behaviors displayed by Homo sapiens, which helped distinguish them from the Neanderthals, who went extinct 30,000 years ago in most parts of Europe. Based on this theory, music could have been a factor in maintaining larger social networks, which in turn may have helped our species expand their territory in the detriment of the more conservative Neanderthals.
The dating evidence from Geissenkloesterle Cave indicates that modern humans reached the Upper Danube region before an extremely cold climatic phase abut 39,000 - 40,000 years ago, said the researchers. It has previously been disputed that modern humans initially entered the Upper Danube immediately after this cold climatic phase.
"Modern humans during [this] period were in central Europe at least 2,000-3,000 years before this climatic deterioration, when huge icebergs calved from ice sheets in the northern Atlantic and temperatures plummeted," Prof. Higham said, as cited by the BBC. "The question is what effect this downturn might have had on the people in Europe at the time."
