Mammoth-bone flute proves that German cavemen played music in 40,000 Before Christ

Music was flourishing in Europe in 40,000BC  millennia before Beethoven or the Beatles.

European's earliest ancestors were playing musical instruments and showing artistic creativity more than 40,000 years ago, a study has shown.

Evidence of the musicians was unearthed in Germany in the form of primitive flutes made from bird bones and mammoth ivory.

A new system of fossil dating confirmed the age of animal bones excavated in the same rock layers as the instruments and examples of early art.

The bones, probably the remains of meals, bore cuts and marks from hunting and eating.