Interesting fact of the day: The first archaeological evidence of instruments, a flute, was **not** made by humans, in fact, it was made by a neanderthal and is 60,000 years old.

@freemo Considering that the majority of humanity have like 2% Neanderthal-DNA (I think I've read that somewhere), we can make the claim anyway! Ha!

@trinsec That doesnt mean we are neanderthals... it only implies we have common ancestry.

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@freemo

My guess is that the first musical instrument was a hollow log or some such (drum). But probably difficult to determine if one was used to make music. If you count woodpeckers, it goes way back!

@trinsec

@Pat

It all comes downt o definition... the first musical instrument would be ones voice, after that perhaps a woodpecker or the beating of the tail of a beaver or similar.. I'm sure some human hit two sticks together like a drum at one point too...

I think if you really want to define a musical instrument for this context in a meaningful way it would have to be some object that had to be formed to make sounds it couldnt naturally do.

@trinsec

@freemo

Yeah, some animal would have to make a drum stick or something for it to count.

If you count vocalizations, that goes back to the Jurassic or even earlier..

@trinsec

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