Flutes go back forty-thousand years?

WashingtonScientists claim to have foundevidence that suggest early humans, nearly 40,000 years ago, might have invented the flute and played it frequently.

While studying an ancient modern human settlement calledGeissenklosterle in southern Germany, a team of researchersstumbled upon bone flutes which they believe date back tomore than 35,000 years.

“These results are consistent with a hypothesis we madeseveral years ago that the Danube River was a key corridor forthe movement of humans and technological innovations intocentral Europe between 40,000 and 45,000 years ago,” studyresearcher Nick Conard, of Tbingen University, was quoted assaying by LiveScience.

“Geissenklosterle is one of several caves in the regionthat has produced important examples of personal ornaments,figurative art, mythical imagery and musical instruments. Thenew dates prove the great antiquity of the Aurignacian inSwabia.” The Aurignacian refers to an ancient culture and the
associated tools.

The flutes are the earliest record of technological andartistic innovations that are characteristic of that period.This culture also created the oldest known art meant torepresent a person, found in the same cave system in 2008.

The researchers, who detailed their work in the journalHuman Evolution, radiocarbon-dated bones found in the samelayer of the archaeological dig as the flutes, and found theobjects were between 42,000 and 43,000 years old, belonging tothe Aurignacian culture dating from the upper Paleolithic
period.

So far, these dates are the earliest for the Aurignacianand predate equivalent sites from Italy, France, England andother regions.

The results indicate that modern humans entered the Upper Danube region before an extremely cold climatic phase around 39,000 to 40,000 years ago, the researchers said.

“Modern humans during the Aurignacian period were incentral Europe at least 2,000 to 3,000 years before thisclimatic deterioration, when huge icebergs calved from icesheets in the northern Atlantic and temperatures plummeted,”
study researcher Tom Higham, of Oxford University, said in astatement.
“The question is what effect this downturn might have hadon the people in Europe at the time.”

This site was inhabited by modern humans, the researcherssaid, but it’s possible that Neanderthals were also in thearea at the same time, though they haven’t been able findevidence of any cultural contact or interbreeding between thetwo groups in this part of Europe.

PTI