Music in the Museum

The beginning of music. Upper Paleolithic Period

Music has accompanied human beings for as long as they have existed, but until very recently it couldn´t be recorded. This fact makes it difficult to study music in ancient civilizations, and even more so at the dawn of human history. Musical instruments are proof of the existence of music in any given civilization. However, the simple, sound-producing instruments crafted by the earliest human beings are practically impossible to identify in archeology. Sticks that tap against each other or an object that produces sound when struck leave no trace or signs of use. In order to make the first flutes, for example, the men and women of the Paleolithic Period probably used the feather shafts or elongated bones of birds, upon which holes were drilled once they had been hollowed out. These might have been some of the first musical instruments of which there remains, unfortunately, very little evidence.