The oldest musical instrument in the world

A bone flute, estimated to be 35,000 years old, was discovered last year in the Hohle Fels cave near Ulm in Baden-Württemberg, as reported in Nature. This cave was also the site where the oldest known example of figurative art, a stone "Venus" statue, was found. Two independent labs reached similar conclusions on the dating of the flute through radiocarbon dating using different techniques. The date roughly coincides with initial settlement of the area by Homo sapiens. The article in The New York Times is a nice summary.