The researchers, from the University of Washington and University of California Berkeley in the US and the Natural History Museum, re-examined a number of bones that were first collected from what is now Lake Malawi in southern Africa.
The disc was too fragile to play using a needle so the museum, along with researchers at the US Library of Congress and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, developed an alternative play-back system that used light and a 3D camera to turn its bumps and grooves into sounds.