Oldest Musical Instrument - #51 Discover Magazine Top 100 Stories of 2009

Top 100 Stories of 2009 #51: Oldest Musical Instrument Found

"35,000 years ago, humans in what's now Germany were making sophisticated flutes from the bones of griffon vultures."

by Aline Reynolds

From the January-February special issue; published online January 3, 2010

 

"More than 35,000 years ago, our ancestors living in present-day southwestern Germany were playing sophisticated music, according to University of Tübingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard. In June he announced that he and his colleagues had unearthed an ancient bone flute in Hohle Fels, a cave in the Swabian mountains. The sound produced by the flute “is almost identical to tones of the major scale played on today’s flute,” says Nikolaj Tarasov, a recorder specialist at the Music University of Karlsruhe in Germany. The five-holed instrument—carved from the bone of a griffon vulture—might be capable of expressing greater harmonic variety than the modern-day flute, he says."

"Conard’s group discovered fragments of three ivory flutes in their 2008 digs. Four other bone and ivory flutes were previously found in the same area. Collectively, these are regarded as the oldest known musical instruments. The researchers conjecture that music was important in the geographic expansion and cultural development of humans during the Upper Paleolithic era. “We can now state that our ancestors had a developed culture,” Tarasov says. “Not only were they surviving, but they had time to do something that required superior skill.”

SOURCE: Discover Magazine.com

All Humans, All Life On Earth, Is Alien - Scientist Claims in Published Academic Journal

All humans are 'aliens from outer space', scientist claims

 By Andrew Hough
Published: 7:30AM GMT 03 Feb 2010

Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe, of Cardiff University, said new research "overwhelmingly" supported the view that human life started from outside our Earth.

The Astrobiologist said the first "seeds of life" were deposited on our plant from space 3,800m years ago.

He claimed microbes from outer space arrived on earth from comets, which then "multiplied and seeded" to form human life.

His said his evidence, published in Cambridge University's International Journal of Astrobiology, showed humans, and all life on Earth, came from aliens brought to the earth by comets hitting the planet.
"Yes, we are all aliens – we share a cosmic ancestry," Prof Wickramasinghe said.

"Each time a new planetary system forms a few surviving microbes find their way into comets.
"These then multiply and seed other planets."

He added: ""We are thus part of a connected chain that extends over a large volume of the cosmos. Evidence is pointing inexorably in this direction."

Prof Wickramasinghe believes life is transferred from planet to planet over billions of years.
He believes comets hit planets and pushed living matter out into space.
He said some survived and got transferred to new planets over a timescale of millions and millions of years.
But he accepts this model still does not explain how life actually began in the first place.
The professor and his late colleague Sir Fred Hoyle championed the so-cllaed "panspermia" theory from the 1960s.

"Evidence from astronomy overwhelmingly supports the view that life did not start on Earth but was seeded from outside," Prof Wickramasinghe said.

"Although we have no definite knowledge how life started in the first place, once started its spread in the cosmos and survival is inevitable.

"As we enter a new decade – the year 2010 – a clear pronouncement of our likely alien ancestry and of the existence of extraterrestrial life on a cosmic scale." 

Source: The Telegraph