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Local name: Arheološki park Divje babe
Cerkno, Slovenia
Julian Alps & Soča Valley
High on the edge of the Šebrelje Plateau, above the Idrijca valley, is the cave where a perforated cave bear bone known as the Neanderthal flute was found in 1995. A guide leads you down a steep path to the cave, and inside, projections show the Neanderthal world and let you hear a reconstruction of the instrument in the chamber where the bone lay. The tour ends on the plateau, at a viewpoint over the valley. Pair it with the Idrija Mercury Mine for a day of two very different underground visits.

Plan Your Visit

Highlights

Cave bear bone site
Digitally enhanced on-site interpretation
Palaeolithic archaeological site
Prehistoric music heritage
Cultural monument of national importance
Excavation layers visible in situ
Panoramic plateau setting
Replica of a world-significant find on site

Safety Notes

!Stay on marked paths
!Steep path
!Uneven terrain
!Wear suitable footwear

Photo Tip

The best photos here are taken above ground: the isolated Church of St. Ivan on the edge of the plateau, and the wide view over the Idrijca valley from the viewpoint where the tour ends. Late afternoon light works especially well across the ridges. Photography and filming inside the cave are generally not permitted.

Before You Go

!Cash payment only
!Dogs must be kept on a leash
!Fixed tour departure times
!Guided tour only
!Not suitable for limited mobility
!Photography restrictions may apply
!Seasonal access
!Sturdy footwear recommended
!Ticket required
!Underground visit

Access & Parking

Detailed access info in Plan Your Visit ↑
Most visitors drive up the narrow, winding road onto the plateau and park for free near the Church of St. Ivan, a short walk from the meeting point. That parking is for passenger cars only; motorhomes should use the free trailhead parking at Reka, in the valley below, where the marked Mulatjera Trail climbs to the plateau. Group coaches drop passengers at a separate designated turning point. Arrive early, because tours leave at fixed times.

Interesting Facts

1
The bone that changed the argument
In 1995, archaeologists Ivan Turk and Janez Dirjec of the ZRC SAZU Institute of Archaeology lifted a perforated cave bear femur from a Mousterian layer of Divje babe I. The bone lay close to the remains of a hearth dated to between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. Because of where it lay, researchers concluded that if the object was shaped by human hands, only Neanderthals could have made it.
2
Why the flute is still debated
The interpretation of the perforated femur remains contested. Slovenian researchers, supported by experimental piercing tests and synchrotron micro-computed tomography, argue that the aligned holes could not have been produced by carnivore teeth. Critics including Francesco d’Errico, Iain Morley and Cajus Diedrich have maintained that hyenas or other carnivores gnawed the bone instead. Slovenia’s national institutions present the object as a musical instrument, while much of the international research community still treats it as an open question.
3
Layers spanning eighty thousand years
Excavation at Divje babe I has documented archaeological layers between roughly 35,000 and 116,000 years old, from the Middle Palaeolithic Mousterian to the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic Aurignacian. The youngest levels studied belong to the period when the last Neanderthals and the first anatomically modern humans overlapped in Europe. Researchers have identified successive occupation layers with hearths and stone and bone tools, and metres of preserved cave sediment remain for future research.
4
Slovenia’s first digitally enhanced cave
Divje babe I is presented as Slovenia’s first digitally enhanced cave. During guided tours, projections on the cave walls reconstruct the archaeological layers in the lower part of the cave and the world of the Neanderthals in the upper part. One sequence lets visitors hear a reconstruction of the instrument in the chamber where the original bone was found. Outside tour times the cave is locked, so the experience exists only with a guide present.
5
Protected at the highest national level
In December 2025 the Government of Slovenia declared Divje Babe Archaeological Park a cultural monument of national importance by decree, replacing earlier local protection in the year of the discovery’s thirtieth anniversary. The designation covers the Divje babe I and Divje babe II caves, an open-air Palaeolithic site on the plateau and the surrounding landscape. The decree also treats the remaining sediments as a scientific reserve.
6
The original is not on site
Visitors who come expecting to see the flute itself will not find it here. The original perforated femur is held by the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana, where it is one of the collection’s best-known objects. What you visit here is the place where it was found: the cave, its sediment layers and the plateau landscape around it, together with a replica you can handle.
7
Tidldibab and the musicians who play it
Reconstructions of the instrument have been played publicly for three decades. Musicologist Drago Kunej was among the first to test its acoustic properties, and the academic musician Ljuben Dimkaroski developed a playing technique on a working replica, naming his instrument Tidldibab after Ivan Turk, himself and the cave. The multi-instrumentalist Boštjan Gombač has continued this work and has performed on a reconstruction at the site itself.
8
More than sixty animal species in the sediment
Beyond the famous find, the cave sediments have produced remains of more than sixty animal species, dominated by the cave bear. Together with charcoal, pollen and small-mammal remains, they form one of the fullest Pleistocene environmental records in Slovenia. Some of the species identified are extinct; others simply withdrew from this landscape as the climate shifted. Bone layers remain visible in the cave sediments during the guided visit.
9
More than prehistory on the plateau
The guided route begins in front of the Church of St. Ivan and also passes traces of much later history. The trenches and caverns near the church were dug by Bosniak units of the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, as part of the rear defensive line behind the Isonzo Front. Together with the viewpoint over the Idrijca valley, they make the plateau itself part of the visit, not just the approach to the cave.
10
Wild women in the cliff
The name Divje babe translates roughly as wild women. Local tradition held that mysterious female figures lived in the caves below the plateau, and parents used the story to keep children away from the drop. Village accounts say the warning did not always work: children explored the lower cave by torchlight and carried bones back to the parish priest, who realised something unusual lay inside. Systematic excavation began in 1980 and continued until 1999.
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Visitor Wisdom

Traveler Insights

Combined public visitor ratings from Google and Tripadvisor. Last verified August 2026.

★★★★★
★★★★★
4.7
Based on 124 visitor ratings

Quick Facts

Estimated visit time
2–3 h
Best season
Spring, Summer, Autumn
Walking difficulty
Moderate
Family friendly
Partly
Pet friendly
Yes
Entry Fee
Paid
Access type
Steep path
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