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.

Researchers working at the site have uncovered more than 600 archaeological items in at least ten levels, including twenty hearths[10] and the skeletal remains of cave bears.

It is at least 10,000 years older than the earliest Aurignacian wind instruments discovered in the German caves Hohle Fels, Geißenklösterle and Vogelherd.

Whether the artifact is actually a flute created by Neanderthals was a subject of a long debate, and many believe the holes in the bone are not of artificial origin.

[6][17][8][18][19][20] The National Museum of Slovenia maintains that evidence presented by Turk in 2005 had "finally refuted hypotheses that the bone was perforated because of a bear bite".

Debate focuses on the following three questions: The artifact is an 11.4 cm long left diaphysis of femur that belonged to a one to two year old cave bear cub.

[24] A similar fracture is present on the anterior side of the distal end, reaching notch 5, which was presumed to be a thumb hole for the flute.

Remains of and evidence for many types of large mammals are present at the site as well,[28] including many carnivores which could have interacted with the bone artifact.

Based on the radiocarbon dating of the charcoal found in the hearth, the age of the flute was initially estimated at 43,100 ± 700 years BP.

[30][31] Arguments have been made that the holes were most likely created by the teeth of an animal, chewing or gnawing on the bone, and that the resemblance to a flute is only coincidental.

[6][7][8][9][19] Other known Upper Palaeolithic flutes made from the limb bones of mammals show clear traces of artificial creation of holes which were carved or drilled with stone tools.

[35] Several arguments were made: Though he argues for Neanderthal origin of the artifact, Turk presumed that the V-fracture at the proximal end is a typical carnivore damage that occurred after the flute was no longer in use.

Pointed stone tools appropriate for piercing bone were found in several Mousterian levels at Divje babe I.

[21][37] Iain Morley (2006) was critical of Kunej and Turk's assessment, noting that despite the large number of bones discovered at the site, "only two [showed] other possible cases of human action ... and the subject femur is the only one of 600 cave bear femurs to carry any such possible traces of human action.

Nowell and Chase had been first to raise the counter-argument that the juvenile bear bone was too short to play those four holes in tune to any diatonic series of tones and half-tones, as proposed by Fink.

[18] Blake Edgar (1998) wrote in California Wild: [Nowell] along with archeologist Philip Chase, had serious doubts as soon as they saw photos of the bone on the Internet.

... Nowell and Chase teamed with a more musically inclined colleague to show that the bear bone would need to be twice its natural total length to conform to a diatonic scale.

[43]Ljuben Dimkaroski (2011) created a reconstruction of the instrument based on his own research, which was able to play a diatonic scale, but in a very different way than proposed by Fink.