Pondering Prehistoric Melodies

“I have a reasonable good ear in music,” says Bottom in Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” “Let’s have the tongs and the bones.”

A Stone Age ancestor living near what is now Ulm, Germany, did Bottom one better. He took the hollow bone of a griffon vulture, carved five holes in it and made one of the first flutes known to exist. (Perhaps it was a she; there are lots of great women flutists.)

This was at least 35,000 ... Full Story »