February
11
/ 2021
During a recent inventory of items held at a museum of natural history in Toulouse, a team of archaeological researchers took the opportunity to re-examine a conch (sea snail) shell retrieved in 1931 from the Marsoulas cave in southern France. Based on its curvature and enclosed shape, it was long believed that the conch shell has been used as a communal or ceremonial cup by the Magdalenian hunter-gatherers who roamed the region surrounding the Pyrenees Mountains near the end of the last Ice Age. After studying the shell more closely, with the assistance of modern, high-tech imaging technology, the researchers realized that what they held in their hands wasn’t a ceremonial cup but a musical instrument. They discovered that the
