Shells found in Spain could be among oldest known musical instruments

As a child, Miquel López García was fascinated by the conch shell, kept in the bathroom, that his father’s family in the southern Spanish region of Almería had blown to warn their fellow villagers of rising rivers and approaching flood waters.

The hours he spent getting that “characteristically potent sound out of it” paid off last year when the archaeologist, musicologist and professional trumpet player pressed his lips to eight conch-shell trumpets. Their tones, he says, could carry insights into the lives of the people who lived in north-east Spain 6,000 years ago.

In an article co-authored with his colleague Margarita Díaz-Andreu, the University of Barcelona researcher argues that 12 large shell trumpets found in Neolithic settlements and mines in Catalonia – and dated to between t