The world's oldest musical instrument (40,000 BCE) Mammoth ivory and bird bone flutes Germany скачать в хорошем качестве

The world's oldest musical instrument (40,000 BCE) Mammoth ivory and bird bone flutes Germany

First Musical Instruments (40,000 BCE) Mammoth ivory and bird bone flutes The discovery suggests the musical tradition was well established in Europe over 40,000 years ago. This mammoth ivory and bird bone flutes are oldest musical instruments ever found. The first modern humans in Europe were playing musical instruments and showing artistic creativity as early as 40,000 years ago, according to new research. Found with fragments of mammoth-ivory flutes, the 40,000-year-old artifact also adds to evidence that music may have given the first European modern humans a strategic advantage It looks like our earliest human ancestors enjoyed recreational activities other than painting on cave walls. A study by Oxford University researchers revealed that the oldest musical instruments ever discovered date as far back as 42,000 to 43,000 years ago. These instruments are flutes made out of mammoth ivory and bird bones. The instruments were discovered inside the caves of southern Germany along the Danube River valley by a team from the country's Tübingen University. They were previously thought to be only 40,000 years of age, but thanks to more advanced carbon dating equipment, it's been proven that the instruments are 2,000 to 3,000 years older. While a couple of thousand of years might seem insignificant (40,000-year-old musical instruments are still very much ancient, after all), this recent discovery sheds light on the movement of early humans in Europe. According to Tom Higham of Oxford University, this suggests that modern humans were already in central Europe "when huge icebergs calved from ice sheets in the northern Atlantic and temperatures plummeted." Scientists previously thought that humans came to central Europe later after the shift in temperature. It's also consistent with earlier hypothesis by Tübingen University researchers that the "Danube River was a key corridor for the movement of humans and technological innovations into central Europe between 40,000 and 45,000 years ago." Early modern humans could have spent their evenings sitting around the fire, playing bone flutes and singing songs 40,000 years ago, newly discovered ancient musical instruments indicate. The bone flutes push back the date researchers think human creativity evolved. "Geißenklösterle is one of several caves in the region that has produced important examples of personal ornaments, figurative art, mythical imagery and musical instruments. The new dates prove the great antiquity of the Aurignacian in Swabia." The Aurignacian refers to an ancient culture and the associated tools. [Gallery: Europe's Oldest Rock Art] Old bones The flutes are the earliest record of technological and artistic innovations that are characteristic of the Aurignacian period created the oldest known example of art meant to represent a person, found in the same cave system in 2008 (that statue seems to be about 40,000 years old). The musical instruments indicate that these early humans were sharing songs and showing artistic creativity even earlier than previously thought. The researchers radiocarbon-dated bones found in the same layer of the archaeological dig as the flutes. This carbon dating uses the level of radioactive carbon, which is naturally occurring in the world and decays predictably into nonradioactive carbon, to estimate the age of organic materials. They found the objects were between 42,000 and 43,000 years old, belonging to the Aurignacian culture dating from the upper Paleolithic period. So far, these dates are the earliest for the Aurignacian and predate equivalent sites from Italy, France, England and other 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 in central Europe at least 2,000 to 3,000 years before this climatic deterioration, when huge icebergs calved from ice sheets in the northern Atlantic and temperatures plummeted," study researcher Tom Higham, of Oxford University, said in a statement. "The question is what effect this downturn might have had on the people in Europe at the time."