Researchers make noises of pre-Columbian society

By JULIE WATSON , Associated Press Writer, General Science / Archaeology & Fossils

Roberto Velazquez, an expert in pre-Columbian sounds, plays a replica of a flute in Mexico City, April 17, 2008. The 66-year-old mechanical engineer has given his career to recreating the sounds of his pre-Columbian ancestors, producing hundreds of replicas of whistles, flutes and wind instruments unearthed in Mexico's ruins. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

(AP) -- Scientists were fascinated by the ghostly find: a human skeleton buried in an Aztec temple with a clay, skull-shaped whistle in each bony hand. But no one blew into the noisemakers for nearly 15 years. When someone finally did, the shrill, windy screech made the spine tingle. If death had a sound, this was it.

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