The oldest instruments ever played.

BBC gets into some *really* vintage sound, grooving with the world’s oldest flutes:

The flutes, made from bird bone and mammoth ivory, come from a cave in southern Germany which contains early evidence for the occupation of Europe by modern humans – Homo sapiens.

Scientists used carbon dating to show that the flutes were between 42,000 and 43,000 years old.

The findings are described in the Journal of Human Evolution.

Musical instruments may have been used in recreation or for religious ritual, experts say.

And some researchers have argued that music may have been one of a suite of behaviours displayed by our species which helped give them an edge over the Neanderthals – who went extinct in most parts of Europe 30,000 years ago.

Music could have played a role in the maintenance of larger social networks, which may have helped our species expand their territory at the expense of the more conservative Neanderthals.

I don’t think I buy that Neanderthal theory… for one thing, if Neanderthals weren’t, um, social, then we wouldn’t have their DNA today. Maybe those mammoth-bone flutes just set the stage for prehistoric romance….