The Bone Flute: The Worlds Oldest Musical Instrument
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In 1995, Archaeologists discovered a prehistoric instrument crafted from cave bear bones that remains playable to this day.
The Neanderthal Flute, discovered in Slovenia’s Divje Babe cave, is believed to have origins dating back at least 50,000 years, rendering it the most ancient musical instrument known to humanity.
The bone flute was found in a cave near the Idrijca River by archaeologists. Ivan Turk, who led the excavation, discovered the instrument next to a hearth that had been used by Neanderthals.
Though only a fragment of the flute remains, it provides insights on how both Homo sapiens and their extinct relatives, Homo neanderthalensis, made music in ancient times.
Slovenian musician Ljuben Dimkaroski played Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor on a clay replica of the flute, created by the Slovenian National Museum.
Despite being thousands of years old, the instrument performs remarkably well, adapting to modern musical scales.
In 2015, Musicologist Bob Fink explained that the flute has four finger holes, each producing a different pitch corresponding to four notes of the diatonic scale used in modern music. Fink also noted that these flute notes naturally fit within any standard diatonic scale, whether contemporary or antique.
Even long after the story of this ancient instrument had become well-known, a study dismissed it as nothing more than a bone chewed on by hyenas—a view still held by some scientists. But hearing the Albinoni played so beautifully on it makes it hard to believe.
Now housed permanently in The Slovenia National Museum, its official description reads:
“The oldest flute in the world. It is pierced by two well-preserved and three damaged holes. The flute from Divje babe is the oldest of Palaeolithic flutes known to the present throughout the world and at the same time the first reliably proven to be made by a Neanderthal.
“As far as we now know, Neanderthals were the first among the closest human relatives that made musical instruments.
“The flute from Divje babe testifies to the fact that Neanderthals were capable of such an abstract and uniquely human activity as creating music.”
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