Punctured extinct cave bear femora were misidentified in southeastern Europe (Hungary/Slovenia) as ‘Palaeolithic bone flutes’ and the ‘oldest Neanderthal instruments’. These are not instruments, nor ...human made, but products of the most important cave bear scavengers of Europe, hyenas. Late Middle to Late Pleistocene (Mousterian to Gravettian) Ice Age spotted hyenas of Europe occupied mainly cave entrances as dens (communal/cub raising den types), but went deeper for scavenging into cave bear dens, or used in a few cases branches/diagonal shafts (i.e. prey storage den type). In most of those dens, about 20% of adult to 80% of bear cub remains have large carnivore damage. Hyenas left bones in repeating similar tooth mark and crush damage stages, demonstrating a butchering/bone cracking strategy. The femora of subadult cave bears are intermediate in damage patterns, compared to the adult ones, which were fully crushed to pieces. Hyenas produced round–oval puncture marks in cub femora only by the bone-crushing premolar teeth of both upper and lower jaw. The punctures/tooth impact marks are often present on both sides of the shaft of cave bear cub femora and are simply a result of non-breakage of the slightly calcified shaft compacta. All stages of femur puncturing to crushing are demonstrated herein, especially on a large cave bear population from a German cave bear den.
The most topical Middle Paleolithic site in Slovenia is presented in full and discussed in detail in this series. The Divje Babe I cave site became famous for the archaeological discovery of what ...current investigations indicate could be the oldest flute, made of the bone of a cave bear, yet discovered. The principal part of the compilation is dedicated to a typological, technological, acoustic and musicological discussion of the remarkable find. Individual chapters present the stratigraphy, chronology, fauna and flora from the site, in addition to the Paleolithic material finds (however, only up to the layer including the bone flute). The book incorporates the first abridged and summarized determinations from the current archaeological excavations, which are not yet concluded. In addition to the editor, who is also the author and coauthor of the majority of chapters, the following individuals also provided contributions to the series: G. Bastiani, M. Culiberg, J. Dirjec, B. Kavur, B. Kryštufek, T.-L. Ku, D. Kunej, D. E. Nelson, M. Omrzel-Terlep and A. Šercelj.
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