March 29, 2024

Wikipedia tells us: The Divje Babe Flute is a cave bear femur pierced by spaced holes that was found in 1995 at the Divje Babe archeological park located near Cerkno in northwestern Slovenia. It has been suggested that it was made by Neanderthals as a form of musical instrument, its hole spacing and alignment leading to its being labeled a “Neanderthal flute.” Slovenian archeologist Mitja Brodar, however, argues that it was made by Cro-Magnons as an element of Central European Aurignacian culture.

If it is a form of flute, it is possibly the world’s oldest known musical instrument. Alternative hypotheses notwithstanding,the artifact remains on prominent public display as a flute in the National Museum of Slovenia (Narodni Muzej Slovenije) in Ljubljana. The museum’s visitor leaflet maintains that manufacture by Neanderthals “is reliably proven…”

“In 1995, Ivan Turk found an approximately 43,100-year-old juvenile cave bear femur at the Divje Babe site, near a Mousterian hearth. Because it has characteristics of a flute, he has called it a “Neanderthal flute…”

Listen to a musician play a replica of the bone flute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHy9FOblt7Y

(It sounds hauntingly beautiful, though modern flute music is being played, and musicologists can only guess at Neanderthal music’s tempo and rhythm.)

If the bone is a flute, it would be evidence of the existence of music 43,000 years ago. Thus Ivan Turk has asserted that whether the holes are of “artificial” (made by man) or “natural” (punctures from a carnivore bite) origin is the “crucial question.” [Several people have suggested the flute is merely the result of hyenas chewing on the bone, but analysis has shown the holes are not punctures from carnivore teeth.]  …The probability that four randomly placed holes would appear in line in a recognizable musical scale is on the order of a few in several million, according to an analysis made in 2000 by Canadian musicologist Bob Fink [, who…] claimed in his essay in 1997, that the bone’s holes were “consistent with four notes of the diatonic scale” (do, re, mi, fa) based on the spacing of those four holes. The spacing of the holes on a modern diatonic flute (minor scale) are unique, and not evenly spaced. In essence, Fink said, they are like a simple fingerprint. The Divje Babe bone’s holes matched those spacings very closely to a series of note-holes in a minor scale.”

About Author