Divje Babe is the oldest known archaeological site in Slovenia. The location of the site is a horizontal cave, 45 metres (148 ft) long and up to 15 metres (49 ft) wide; it is 230 m (750 ft) above the Idrijca River, near Cerkno, and is accessible to visitors. Researchers of Pleistocene climate change working at the site have uncovered more than 600 archaeological items in at least ten levels, including twenty hearths[8] and the skeletal remains of cave bears.[9] According to the museum's statements, the presumed flute has been associated with the "end of the middle Pleistocene" and with Neanderthals, about 55,000 years ago.

In 1995, archeologist Ivan Turk of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts found the approximately 43,100-year-old[13][14] cave bear femur at the Divje Babe site near a Mousterian hearth. Because it has the characteristics of a flute, he dubbed it a Neanderthal flute. Bob Fink claimed in his essay in 1997, that the bone's holes were "consistent with four notes of the diatonic scale" (do, re, mi, fa) based on the spacing of those four holes. The spacing of the holes on a modern diatonic (minor scale) flute are unique, and not evenly spaced. In essence, Fink said, they are like a simple fingerprint. The Divje Babe bone's holes matched those spacings very closely to a series of note-holes in a minor scale.