• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

12,000-Year-Old Bone Flutes Discovered Sound Amazingly Like Birds Of Prey

June 9, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

Archaeologists in Israel have discovered the oldest wind instruments ever found in the Middle East, dating back to the period when humans made the transition from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to agricultural settlements. Constructed from the wing-bones of small ducks, the flutes mimic the calls of local birds of prey and may have been used for hunting or simply to produce music.

The ancient instruments were uncovered at the site of Eynan-Mallaha in northern Israel, in a layer of sediment associated with the Natufian archaeological culture. Occupying the region between 13,000 and 9,700 BCE, the Natufians were the first people to adopt a sedentary lifestyle and establish an agricultural economy, thus bringing humanity from the Paleolithic into the Neolithic. 

Advertisement

In total, the archaeologists unearthed seven bone aerophones, one of which was intact while the remaining six were fragmented. “One of the flutes was discovered complete. So far as is known it is the only one in the world in this state of preservation,” explained researchers Dr Laurent Davin and Dr Hamoudi Khalaily in a statement sent to IFLScience. 

12,000-year-old flutes discovered in the Levant

The flutes were perforated with one to four-finger holes. Image courtesy of Yoli Schwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority

“Through technological, use-wear, taphonomic, experimental, and acoustical analyses, we demonstrate that these objects were intentionally manufactured more than 12,000 years ago to produce a range of sounds similar to raptor calls and whose purposes could be at the crossroads of communication, attracting hunting prey and music-making,” write the researchers in a new study.

Each flute was perforated with one to four finger holes, allowing the player to manipulate the tone. After creating replicas of the ancient instruments, the researchers noted that they produced “three intense high frequencies” which mimicked the calls of the common kestrel and the sparrowhawk – both of which were common in the region at the start of the Neolithic.

“The replicas produce the same sounds that the hunter-gatherers may have made 12,000 years ago,” said Davin and Khalaily. “We, therefore, believe that the Eynan-Mallaha aerophones were made to reproduce the calls of the valued Common kestrel and Sparrowhawk,” they write.

Advertisement



Speculating as to the purpose of these raptor-parroting flutes, the researchers discuss whether they may have been used to lure the birds to within hunting distance. “If the flutes were used for hunting, then this is the earliest evidence of the use of sound in hunting,” said Khalaily.

However, after briefly exploring this possibility, they conclude that such a tactic “would have lacked effectiveness.” Instead, they wonder “if imitative bird calls were integrated into Natufian musical or dancing practices.”

Whatever their function, these ancient instruments are the earliest sound-making devices ever discovered in the Levant – though older examples have previously been found in Europe, including a set of 40,000-year-old bone and ivory flutes from southwestern Germany.

Advertisement

Framing their discovery within the wider context of human cultural development in the Middle East, the researchers explain that “it is now clear that the evolution of music at the transition to agriculture, which articulated the intensification of socio-cultural complexity, was more branched than we supposed before.”

The study has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Take Five: Big in Japan
  2. Struggle over Egypt’s Juhayna behind arrest of founder, son – Amnesty
  3. Exclusive-Northvolt plots EV battery grab with $750 million Swedish lab plan
  4. New Record Set With 17 People In Earth Orbit At The Same Time

Source Link: 12,000-Year-Old Bone Flutes Discovered Sound Amazingly Like Birds Of Prey

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • The World’s Oldest Known Cake Is Over 4,000 Years Old, And It Sounds Pretty Delicious
  • An Ominous Haze Lurks Over The Deadliest Volcano In US, But USGS Says A Repeat Of 1980 Isn’t Coming
  • Hayabusa2’s Target Asteroid Is 4 Times Smaller Than Thought – Can It Still Touch Down On It?
  • In 2011, Slavc The Wolf Journeyed 1,000 Miles To Begin Verona’s First Wolf Pack In 100 Years
  • Anyone Know What These Marine “Y-Larvae” Grow Into? Because Scientists Have No Clue
  • C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) Closest Earth Approach Is Next Month – Will We See It With The Naked Eye?
  • In 2013, A Volcanic Eruption Wiped Out Life On This Remote Island. Then, Somehow, Plants Reemerged
  • 1-Year-Old Orca Takes Out A Big Fat Seal In This Award-Winning – And Extremely Badass – Photo
  • Saturn And Neptune Will Reach Their Brightest In Days – And Look For Saturn’s Temporary Beauty Spot
  • Reindeer Bring A Gift Greater Than Any Of Santa’s – Hope Of A Stable Climate
  • If Deep-Sea Pressure Can Crush A Human Body, How Do Deep-Sea Creatures Not Implode?
  • Meet Ned: The Lonely Lefty Snail Looking For Love
  • “America Will Lead The Next Giant Leap”: NASA Announces New Milestone In Hunt For Exoplanets
  • What Did Neanderthals Sound Like?
  • One Star System Could Soon Dazzle Us Twice With Nova And Supernova Explosions
  • Unethical Experiments: When Scientists Really Should Have Stopped What They Were Doing Immediately
  • The First Humans Were Hunted By Leopards And Weren’t The Apex Predators We Thought They Were
  • Earth’s Passage Through The Galaxy Might Be Written In Its Rocks
  • What Is An Einstein Cross – And Why Is The Latest One Such A Unique Find?
  • If We Found Life On Mars, What Would That Mean For The Fermi Paradox And The Great Filter?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version