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35,000-Year-Old Flute Is Oldest Music Instrument Ever Found
Omomyid writes "The AFP is reporting the discovery of a 35,000 year-old flute, made from a vulture wing bone. The context described makes it sound like a musician's shop. There were also fragments of ivory-based flutes and flint tools. Being at least 35KYO this bone flute beats the previous oldest-known musical instrument by at least 5,000 years and puts it very close to the beginning of the Aurignacian culture."
This one time, 35,000 years ago at band camp...
It makes a person wonder just how long ago music was enjoyed (besides whistling or singing) or did we just grunt our way around?
The more I learn about the subject, the more convinced I am that the ancients were not the unsophisticated primitives that we often imagine them to be.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
It is the oldest for the Homo sapiens, but there were flutes found on Neanderthal sites, much older flutes.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/376813/neanderthal_flute_the_oldest_musical.html
Or that we are not the sophisticated advanced species we often imagine us to be?
But what's really interesting about this flute is that the harmonics are very close to a modern-day flute - 35,000 years later! There is a sample of the recreated sound right now on the New York Times website (permalink)...
Disclaimer - IAPOM. I am a professional orchestral musician.
"Harmonics" doesn't really mean anything in this sense. Flutes don't play two notes simultaneously, so there is no harmony. This flute is capable of playing at least 5 distinct pitches, or at least 10 if you count overblowing to get a higher octave. The notes in the example are Eb, F, G, Bb, and C, which is a pentatonic scale.
This is the most amazing thing to me. The pentatonic scale's pitches have the simple frequency ratios of 1:9/8:5/4:3/2:5/3. Instruments designed to play this scale have been found almost everywhere humans play music. The person that made this instrument perceived, through sound, these simple mathematical ratios. 35,000 years ago, humans had already discovered the beauty in mathematics.
Also, I can draw the conclusion that the person that made this flute had made flutes previously, or learned from someone who did. The chances of gouging holes in a bone at random and having a very accurate pentatonic scale along with a serviceable embouchure hole in the end product is vanishingly small. This skill is learned by trial and error or instruction. This opens up more questions. If the maker of this flute didn't invent the pentatonic scale, who did? How old is the scale?