Everyone who lives or vacations near the ocean has gone on an early morning beach walk to collect shells and, thinking they have found a perfectly intact specimen, bent over and plucked it from the sand, only to find the top broken off, the bottom missing, or a crack in the side. In the case of this sea snail shell from Marsoulas Cave in France’s Pyrenees Mountains—the largest shell ever found in a European prehistoric context—what might first be perceived as damage was actually the product of precision artistry. Many millennia ago, a member of the Paleolithic Magdalenian culture made a musical instrument from the shell, creating what is now the oldest known shell wind instrument in the world.