Mondo Knows Facts

The Hohle Fels flute is the oldest instrument

The vulture bone pipe from a German cave is about 40,000 years old The flute was found in 2008 in the Hohle Fels cave in the Swabian Jura and carved from the radius of a griffon vulture, with five finger holes and a V shaped mouthpiece. Radiocarbon dating of the surrounding deposits places it at roughly 40,000 years old, in the Aurignacian period. A nearby site yielded fragments of ivory flutes of similar age. It sits in Mondo's records & extremes collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

University of Tuebingen

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Tags: flutes, germany, archaeology

The Hohle Fels flute is the oldest instrument: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
The vulture bone pipe from a German cave is about 40,000 years old. The figure is taken from University of Tuebingen, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a records & extremes fact?
Yes. It sits on the Records & Extremes shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.