home page ARCHAEOLOGY FLUTE'S UNPLEASANT SCREECHY SOUND IMITATES PREDATOR BIRDS Archaeologists discover and replicate earliest musical instrument in the Middle East Tiny 12,000-year-old bone hunting flute likely used to attract birds of prey for Natufian settlements in Hula Valley By MELANIE LIDMAN Today, 2:11 pm 0 Hebrew University post-doctoral fellow Dr. Laurent Davin plays a recreated 12,000-year-old flute discovered in northern Israel. (credit Laurent Davin) Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily holds the original 12,000-year-old flute discovered in a Natufian village in northern Israel. (Hamoudi Khalaily/IAA) The tiny finger holes drilled with talons at regular intervals in the 12,000-year-old flute discovered in northern Israel (Hamoudi Khalaily/IAA) Fragments of seven flutes discovered in northern Israel that were likely used for hunting birds some 12,000 years ago. (Hamoudi Khalaily/IAA) Migrating Gray Cranes at the Agmon Hula Lake in the Hula Valley in northern Israel, November 16, 201