We all knew that Stone Age humans were hunters and gatherers. But sculptors and flutists?
Archeologists announced today that they had unearthed the oldest musical instruments ever found — flutes that inhabitants of southwestern Germany laboriously carved from bone and ivory at least 35,000 years ago.
The find suggests just how integral artistic expession may be to human existence: Music apparently flourished even in prehistoric days when mere survival was a full-time endeavor.
The instruments were found in a cave, amid bones from bears and mammoths and flakes of flint from a Stone Age tool shop.
Archaeologists unearth oldest musical instruments ever found – The Boston Globe.