The earliest known recording of the human voice is from 1860, and it was recorded in dirt! Scratches made along paper with a layer of soot, to be precise. The phonautograph was invented by Frenchman Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville, and it was the inspiration for Edison’s phonograph. Recently, engineers recovered this amazing recording of a singing woman.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/MAR/phonautogram.mp3]Rough, but recognizable and thoroughly amazing! Compare this to the nanotube FM radio I featured at this link. Neither recording is high fidelity, but both represent the absolute state-of-the-art in technology for their time.