Eaten Or Played?

Stephen Palmer

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Flute, or cave bear crunched? Opinions welcome.

512px-Flûte_paléolithique_(musée_national_de_Slovénie,_Ljubljana)_(9420310527).jpg
 
To me, the holes look to neatly round to have been “crunched” by teeth, looks like they were drilled.
 
Flute because holes very round and also aligned neatly in the middle of the bone, on a nice flattish bit for fingers. Chances of something crunching a bone having it lined up perfectly along the midline on both teeth seems low to me.
 
Agreed, not teeth marks, but I'm not convinced it's a musical instrument either. I think dating of the object would help.
 
Or something to do with weaving or spinning.
Looks like a tool of some type rather than a flute. Maybe a handle with a cord passing through the two holes.

A handle like that could be useful for fishing, sailing, even as simple as carrying things. This would offer a level of protection and grip that would provide for the user to apply a lot more strength to an attached cord.
 
It looks a lot like a bone flute. No sign of fracturing around the upper hole - made very carefully. It appears to have snapped in three, midway through a couple of the finger holes.
 
It's clearly a Fred Flintstone dickie bow.

The two holes are for leather string that are used to secure the dress wear bone just below the chin. Used with your best buckskin evening wear, Fred is well set to attend office functions over the Christmas period.

Or the stone age version of Christmas, as Jesus has not yet been born. Sadly, office functions are timeless and compulsory in December whatever age you live in.
 

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