Prehistoric Musical Instruments

Searching for prehistoric artifacts relating to Music, I found we have three main categories we can find: Wind Instruments, String Instruments and Persecution Instruments. We can't know for certain which was conceived first, but we can tell which artifacts are the oldest. I'll try to bring up as much finds as I can muster, but for now let's start with the oldest found in each category.

Wind Instruments:

I'm starting with Wind Instruments because these are the instruments we can carbon date the farthest back. I found an article about the world's oldest flute uncovered, which predates any other musical artifact I could find.

These flutes were fashioned from vulture bone approximately 40,000 years ago. They were uncovered in 2008 at Hohle Fels in southern Germany. The team of archaeologists was led by Nicholas Conard of the University of Tübingen in Germany.

The instruments were crafted with V shaped notches at the mouthpiece end, and four holes to achieve different notes. I found this youtube video. Since the flutes were found in Germany, this 1:44 clip is also from Germany. Some English spoken in there, but I felt this clip was best to provide a description of the findings, as well as a sound clip so you can hear how the flute would have sounded like when played.

Percussion Instruments:

Though percussion instruments are more likely the first instruments we fashioned, I can't find any artifacts found that predates the vulture flutes. The oldest percussion instruments that we can find are called lithophones. If you don't recognize this word, which the auto-correct dictionary doesn't recognize either, that would be because the concept of lithophones is a relatively new one. The first documentation I found referring to lithophones is dated back to July 28th, 2012, a very well written paper by Duncan Caldwell, which I found here: pdf file.

The oldest lithophone I've found mentioned so far dates somewhere between 2500 and 8000 BC. In fact, this instrument was played in March of 2014 by the French National Orchestra. Below is a clip where the composer, Philippe Fenelon. The clip is in french...I'll try to translate it as much as possible when I have free time. But at first the host explained the origin of the stones, and then we listen to the stones being played.

String Instruments:

Next, I'd like to review string instruments. We see plenty of evidence of string instruments in statues and hieroglyphs, but what's the oldest one we found? Well, in 1929 a team of archaeologists let by Sir Leonard Woolley found a mass grave containing seventy-four bodies; six men and sixty-eight women. Four lyres and one harp were also found in the grave. One of the lyres was found with the remains of one of the women, likely it's owner, with one hand where the strings would have been. This lyre stood out from the reset as it was more ornate with Gold plating and gemstones.

The other lyres along with a harp were found in a pile. One of these was plated with silver, and so was preserved better than the others.

There are musicians who have reproduced the sounds of this Lyre. Here's is one playing on a replica of the Silver Lyre. The sound if very beautiful.

My sources for the information relating to the Lyre or Ur come from The British Museum, a BBC news article, and www.lyre-of-ur.com.