Divje Babe flute

Divje Babe flute
The artifact as displayed in the museum
MaterialBone
Long11.2 cm (4.4 in) [1]
CreatedMiddle Paleolithic (50000 - 60000 BP)
Discovered1995 Divje Babe cave, Slovenia
Present locationNational Museum of Slovenia, Ljubljana

The Divje Babe flute, also called tidldibab, is a cave bear femur pierced by spaced holes that was unearthed in 1995 during systematic archaeological excavations led by the Institute of Archaeology of the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, at the Divje Babe I near Cerkno in northwestern Slovenia.[2][3] It has been suggested that it was made by Neanderthals as a form of musical instrument, and became known as the Neanderthal flute. The artifact is on prominent public display in the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana as a Neanderthal flute.[1] As such, it would be the world's oldest known musical instrument.[4]

This claim was met with severe criticism and dispute within the scientific community.[5][6][7][8][9] There are no other known instances of a Neanderthal musical instrument, and such a find from the Middle Paleolithic (Mousterian) might indicate previously unknown symbolic behavior among Neanderthals.

  1. ^ a b "Neanderthal Flute – the Flute from Divje Babe". Natural History Museum of Slovenia. Archived from the original on 3 January 2017. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
  2. ^ Turk, I., Dirjec, J., Kavur, B. 1995, The oldest musical instrument in Europe discovered in Slovenia? Razprave 4. Razreda Sazu 36, 287–293.
  3. ^ Turk, I. (ed.) 1997, Mousterian »Bone Flute« and Other Finds from Divje Babe I Cave Site, Slovenia. Opera Instituti Archaeologici Sloveniae 2, Ljubljana.
  4. ^ Omerzel-Terlep, Mira. "Koščene piščali: pričetek slovenske, evropske in svetovne instrumentalne glasbene zgodovine" [Bone flutes: Beginning of the history of the instrumental music in Slovenia, Europe, and world] (PDF). Etnolog (in Slovenian): 292. ISSN 0354-0316. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2013-04-04.
  5. ^ Bower, B. (1998). "Doubts Aired over Neandertal Bone 'Flute'". Science News. 153 (14): 215. doi:10.2307/4010441. JSTOR 4010441.
  6. ^ d'Errico, Francesco; Villa, Paola; Llona, Ana C. Pinto; Idarraga, Rosa Ruiz (1998). "A Middle Palaeolithic origin of music? Using cave-bear bone accumulations to assess the Divje Babe I bone 'flute'". Antiquity. 72 (275): 65–79. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00086282. S2CID 55161909.
  7. ^ Albrecht, G.; Holdermann, C.S.; Kerig, T.; Lechterbeck, J.; Serangeli, J. (1998). ""Flöten" aus Bärenknochen—Die frühesten Musikinstrumente?". Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt. 28: 1–19.
  8. ^ Chase, Philip G.; Nowell, April (1998). "Taphonomy of a Suggested Middle Paleolithic Bone Flute from Slovenia". Current Anthropology. 39 (4): 549–553. doi:10.1086/204771. S2CID 144800210.
  9. ^ Morley, Iain (2006). "Mousterian Musicianship? The Case of the Divje Babe I Bone". Oxford Journal of Archaeology. 25 (4): 317–333. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0092.2006.00264.x. Retrieved May 30, 2024.