18th International Meeting

StubickeToplice
Croatia

13-17 April, 2011

at the invitation of

Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku

Svanibor Pettan and Ljuben Dimkaroski, 
Slovenia
svanibor.pettan@guest.arnes.si

Paleolithic Bone Flute from Divje babe revisited (II)

Since the archaeologist Ivan Turk discovered a young bear’s femur with holes in 1995 in the Paleolithic cave Divje babe in Slovenia, several researchers from various disciplinary realms dedicated their efforts and writings to the find and its possible musical connotations. Arguments in favor and against the musical nature of the find have been presented over the years (e.g. Omerzel Terlep 1998, Chase and Nowell 1998, Kunej and Turk 2000, D’Errico et al. 2003, Horusitzky 2003, Morley 2006) and the issue gradually faded out from the scholarly and media attention.
Encouragement for revisiting the alleged bone flute from Divje babe came with the new set of experiments conducted by the musician and instrument maker Ljuben Dimkaroski in the course of 2009. These were assisted by archeologist Ivan Turk and ethnomusicologist Svanibor Pettan, and the results were presented at a special event in the National Museum in Ljubljana in November 2009 and at the 7th symposium of the Study Group for Music Archaeology in Tianjin, China, in September 2010. This paper presents new evidence, including a series of experiments and the manner of playing unaddressed by previous researchers, and seeks for an answer to the question whether and if so, to what extent the new arguments can contribute to the scholarly debate that started a decade ago. Ljuben Dimkaroski will demonstrate his musical treatment of the find from Divje babe.