‘Neanderthal bone flutes’: simply products of Ice Age spotted hyena scavenging activities on cave bear cubs in European cave bear dens

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.

2. Introduction

2.1 First ‘bone flute descriptions’

The first ‘Neanderthal cave bear bone flute’ from the Middle Palaeolithic was believed to have been discovered in the 1920s from Potočka Zijalka Jama Cave (i.e. Potok Cave), Slovenia [1]. This was a larger cave bear den (cf. [2,3]) and Late Palaeolithic Aurignacian (not Neanderthal) used rock shelter camp site at the entrance (cf. [1]; figure 1). In this cave, cave bear hunts by Cro-Magnon humans seem to be indicated on a cave bear shoulder blade pathology (large diagonal impact hole, partly healed diagonal hole) that seems to have been made by a probable Mladeč projectile bone point [5].

Other cave bear cub femora with holes (‘bone flutes’) were then reported from the Istállóskö Cave, Hungaria (cf. [6]). This was a smaller cave bear and Ice Age spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta spelaea) carnivore den which overlaps with another Aurignacian camp site, but again, it has no Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthal occupation signs (cf. [7]).

Brodar [8] reported cave bear cub femora and other cave bear bones ‘with holes’ as further proof of the ‘oldest instruments in the world’ from the Mokriška Jama Cave (or Medvedja Jama Cave=Bear Cave), Slovenia. Also, this is a large cave bear den which had again an Aurignacian camp site at the entrance, and again no Neanderthal occupation at all (cf. [9,10]).

All aforementioned femora and other cave bear bones with ‘holes’ (i.e. ribs, humeri and jaws) were compiled and studied by the ethnologist/musician Omerzel-Telep [11], without any natural science, nor palaeozoology background, especially the important ecology of cave bears and their predators/scavengers, non-human top predators of the Ice Age and the wide distribution of cave bear den caves in Europe (cf. [3,12–21]; figures 1 and 2), where always large amounts of damaged and also punctured cave bear bones are present, such as figured with many new examples herein for the northern German Weiße Kuhle Cave and other cave bear dens (figures 3–7).

2.2 The long discussed Slovenian punctured cave bear cub bone find

Another juvenile bear cub femur with holes from Divje Babe I Cave, Slovenia, a small cave bear den (cf. [25]; figure 5(4)), where also Neanderthal Mousterian layers were believed to be present [26], was declared twice incorrectly as the ‘oldest instrument’, a 43 140 BP old ‘Neanderthal flute’ from layer 8 [26,27] (figure 5(4)). This was already contradictory to the results of the archaeological inventory that is well acceptably declared to be solely of, again, Cro-Magnon human Late Palaeolithic origin, and not of Mousterian (cf. [28]). The Aurignacian lithic material appears also together with cave bear remains [25]. Therefore, there is no evidence for a Neanderthal (Mousterian) context and the cave bear remains, which even occur in several older and younger Late Pleistocene layers (cf. [25]). The only absolute date was made solely on a cave bear bone, the ‘bone flute’, whose age would date into the Neanderthal or ‘cave bear den’ time period. This report of a ‘cave bear femur bone flute’ was not the ‘oldest’, neither historically, nor by stratigraphy. The bone's holes on the dorsal side appear not to line up, whereas on the ventral side another hole was declared as the ‘thumb hole’. The studies even thrilled up to ‘exact musical studies’ [29]. Fink [30,31] declared then to the top of this, without natural scientific studies, that the hole spacing matched a ‘diatonic scale sequence, among the most widespread scales known’—which underlines, also contradictory, that this is not of human origin. Ethnologist/musicians created then a wave of ‘cave bear bone instruments’ based solely on ‘holes in bones’ (compiled in [11]), from all kinds of carnivore punctured cave bear bones, even other than femora. Other authors doubted the ‘flute’ and human origin however (e.g. [32–38]) or were fighting for pro-arguments (e.g. [39,40]). At least, very correctly, the ‘holes’ were mostly discussed to be of ‘carnivore chewing damage’ origin (cf. [32,33,37,41]), whereas X-ray scans did not prove any ‘drill-scratches around the holes’ or any marks of stone tools on the bones, and left again the question of the hole origin open (cf. [42]). The exact carnivore was never estimated, even by newer and fully controversial studies by Turk et al. [24] that lack carnivore ecology knowledge, especially in tooth and jaw function of top predators. Ignoring the top predator bone damage on Ice Age animal bones, again the pseudo-bone flute was not only ‘confirmed’, even more bone flute finds were added by the same Slovenian author (cf. [43]), who misidentified: (a) the site occupation by Neanderthals, as those of Aurignacians [28], (b) the bone, by rotating it upside down (see [44]), the 180^° rotation of which is corrected herein (figure 5a), (c) the general bone taphonomy of cave bear bones, and (d) carnivore jaw functions, especially hyenas, correctly presented herein (figure 2).

2.3 Hyena and cave bear populations over Europe: specialized cave bear scavenges

In this contribution, not only sole carnivore damage can be demonstrated on all previously published ‘pseudo-bone flutes’, which were already revised in some cases [4,16] (figure 2). Herein, even more of such cave bear bones with holes can be added with focus only on the femora (figures 5–7), from German and Romanian cave bear den sites (therefore not limited to Slovenia at all, as mentioned by Turk et al. [24]; see figures 1, 5–7 and table 1). Their producer, a large carnivore, and the main scavenger/bone destructor of the Ice Age, the Ice Age spotted hyena Crocuta crocuta spelaea, will be discussed as the oval hole producer herein (figure 2), based on the intensive Late Pleistocene central European cave bear and top predator studies in and outside caves of the past years (e.g. [3,12–16–22,51,54,55]). This results in a different viewpoint of modern zooarchaeology, multiple animal/human use of larger cave systems and cave models (figure 2). The Ice Age top predator research in Europe focused these past years on hunting of cave bears in large cave bear dens. There, damage on cave bear bones is now well known and reported in several publications (e.g. [3,4,16,18–21,51,56]; figure 2). All former archaeological, ecological focus cave bear ‘bone flute’ studies forgot all four cave bear predators—steppe lions (Panthera leo spelaea), leopards (Panthera pardus spelaea), Ice Age spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta spelaea) and Ice Age wolves (Canis lupus spelaeus)—which are known now to be cave bear killers, and main consumers in mountain regions, where mammoth steppe megafauna were absent [4,18–21]. These predators specialized in consuming mainly (and especially in winter times during cave bear hibernation) cave bears in boreal forest mountain regions, but in different ways and with different impact on the carcasses and bone destruction (cf. figures 2 and 3). However, the main ‘bone destructor’ is known to be the European Ice Age spotted hyena [19] (figure 2), with cave bear bone damage first understood at the overlapping hyena den (cave entrance) and cave bear den of the Perick Caves [50–52], with newer proof at Sophie's Cave [21,22], and Hermann's Cave [16] or Zoolithen Cave [18] and herein best demonstrated and newly added for the Weiße Kuhle Cave (figures 3, 4, 6 and 7).