It’s an extremely rare example of a “seashell horn” from the Paleolithic period, the team concluded. And it still works — a musician recently coaxed three notes from the 17,000-year-old shell.

A seashell found 90 years ago at the entry to a French cave displaying ancient wall paintings was made into a horn that could play musical notes around 18,000 years ago, researchers say. C. Fritz ...

A horn made from a conch shell over 17,000 years ago has blasted out musical notes for the first time in millennia. Archaeologists originally found the seashell in 1931, in a French cave that ...

Like the other able-bodied villagers in Fusing (復興) on the coast of Yilan’s Jhuangwei Township (壯圍), a 14-year-old Lin Jung-wen (林榮文) would drop whatever he was doing and run toward the ocean at the ...

A large conch shell overlooked in a museum for decades is now thought to be the oldest known seashell instrument — and it still works, producing a deep, plaintive bleat, like a foghorn from the ...

A seashell found in a French cave in 1931 appears to have been modified by prehistoric people so that it could be used like a trumpet. This horn, however, is not the oldest known musical instrument.

These stylistic similarities can be indicative of some special ceremonial practice where the seashell horn was sounded near to the bison’s picture for spiritual, celebratory or other reasons.

Heading to the beach soon? Here are some types of seashells that you can find at Corpus Christi beaches.

This seashell horn, with its unique sonority, both deep and strong with an enduring reverberation, sheds light on a musical dimension until now unknown in the context of Upper Paleolithic societies.

Ancient shell horn can still play a tune after 18,000 years A large conch shell overlooked in a museum is now thought to be the oldest known seashell instrument, and it can still play a tune ...

Ancient shell horn can still play a tune after 18,000 years The shell was found during the 1931 excavation of a cave with prehistoric wall paintings in the French Pyrenees and assumed to be a ...

A large conch shell overlooked in a museum for decades is now thought to be the oldest known seashell instrument — and it still works, producing a deep, plaintive bleat, like a foghorn from the ...