Archaeologists have unearthed a 35,000-year-old flute made from a woolly mammoth’s ivory tusk in a German cave, the University of Tübingen said Friday.
The flute, one of the oldest musical instruments discovered, was pieced together from 31 fragments found in a cave in the Swabian mountains in southwestern Germany, the university said.
The mountains have yielded rich pickings in recent years, including ivory figurines, ornaments and other musical instruments. Archaeologists believe humans camped in the area in winter and spring.
Mammoths, now extinct, were large elephantlike creatures with hairy coats and long, upcurved tusks. They lived during the Pleistocene period from 2 million to 11,000 years ago.
The university said it planned to put the instrument on display in a museum in Stuttgart.