Divje Babe flute

Divje Babe Flute

The artifact as displayed in the museum
Material	Bone
Created	(43100 ± 700 BP)
Discovered	1995 near Cerkno, Slovenia
Present location	National Museum of Slovenia, Ljubljana

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 in the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana as a reliably proven Neanderthal flute.

Divje Babe is the oldest known archaeological site in Slovenia. The site is the location of a horizontal cave, 45 metres (148 ft) long and up to 15 metres (49 ft) wide. It is located 230 m (750 ft) above the Idrijca River, near Cerkno, and is accessible to visitors. Researchers working at this site have uncovered more than 600 archaeological items in at least ten levels, including 20 hearths, the skeletal remains of cave bears and have studied climate change during the . According to the museums statements, the presumed flute has been associated with the "end of the middle " and Neanderthals, about 55,000 years ago.

In the 1920s and 1930s, archaeologist Srečko Brodar discovered tens of bones with holes at another site, the Potok Cave (Slovene: Potočka zijalka) in the Eastern Karawanks, but almost all of them were destroyed during the World War II Italian annexation. Of those still preserved, the best known is a mandible of a cave bear with three holes in the mandibular canal.