Tiny bones from 12,000-year-old prehistoric birds found in northern Israel have been identified as flutes, researchers say.
The seven miniature flutes, made of waterfowl bones, emit sounds like the calls of predatory birds, and the researchers suggest they might have been used for making music, hunting, or some form of communication with the birds.
The paper that uncovered the findings was published on June 9 in Nature Scientific Report.
It was authored by Dr. Laurent Davin, a post-doctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Centre de Recherche Français à Jérusalem (CRJF), and Dr. José-Miguel Tejero, the University of Vienna and the University of Barcelona, Spain….