12,000-year-old flutes carved of bone unearthed in Israel sound like birds of prey

[Still Waters]

Archaeologists have unearthed a collection of 12,000-year-old flutes carved out of bird bones at a prehistoric site in Israel. When played, the artifacts mimic the calls of certain birds of prey.

The site, called Eynan-Mallaha (also known as Ain Mallaha), was once occupied by the Natufians, a cultural group that were the last hunter-gatherers in the Levant, a region that spans the land around the eastern Mediterranean, according to a study published Friday (June 9) in the journal Scientific Reports.

Although researchers had investigated the site extensively since its discovery in the 1950s, last year archaeologists were surprised to find the flutes scattered among a stockpile of 1,100 bird bones.

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/12000-year-old-flutes-carved-of-bone-are-some-of-the-oldest-in-the-world-and-sound-like-birds-of-prey

Study:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-35700-9

https://www.iflscience.com/12000-year-old-bone-flutes-discovered-sound-amazingly-like-birds-of-prey-69320