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Often drums were made from materials that decay quickly (wood, hide, fiber). So some of the earlier ones have been hard to detect
It’s established that some are much older than evidence or remains.

There are sometimes skin or fiber residue remains
The drum skin or cords can survive in extremely dry environments, frozen environments, waterlogged sites.

Sometimes the frame survives but the skin is gone
There are rim holes where the skin was tied, and/or wear marks from striking.

And, antler or bone sticks have been found surviving, even if the drum has not
Found in both paleolithic, and neolithic, contexts interpreted as percussion tools.

Using iconography, even when drums are unidentifiable, clues remain too
Ancient art sometimes depicts musicians holding drums in Sumerian carvings, Egyptian tomb paintings, and Greek pottery.

A progression may have been body percussion, stone or wood percussion, skin drums, then more complex drums

Most archaeologists believe drums likely appeared in the late paleolithic or early neolithic
Humans were already making bone flutes 40 thousand years ago

A drum can be made simply by stretching animal skin over a hollow log or pit
They require very little technology.

Archaeological studies have suggested that true drums appear in the neolithic, or around 6 to 5 thousand BCE
Examples were hollow tree trunks. animal skins (fish, reptile, or mammal), struck by hands and/or sticks.

Ethnographic and experimental evidence suggests they may have existed much earlier. Perhaps by 20 to 30 thousand years ago
Because the technology is so simple.

Some of the earliest archaeological drums were found in neolithic China, 5.5 to 2.35 thousand BCE
The alligator drum was discovered at neolithic sites such as the Dawenkou culture.

In Mesopotamia, around 3 thousand BCE, larger, waist-high temple drums were found and used in rituals and ceremonies
Also depicted in ancient Sumerian art and texts.

By the bronze age, huge ceremonial drums appear in Southeast Asia, and others

Most agree, drums came first because the body itself can make clapping, & stomping sounds. Plus without modification, rocks or logs can be struck and create drum sounds. Drums are universal. Check it out with some more neolithic architecture today.

Bibliography: Liu, Li (2007). The Chinese Neolithic: Trajectories to Early States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-01064-0

Britannica frame drum. (n.d.). https://www.britannica.com/art/frame-drum

Engel, Carl (1864). The Music of the Most Ancient Nations, Particularly of the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Hebrews: With Special Reference to Recent Discoveries in Western Asia and in Egypt (https://archive.org/details/musicofmostancie00enge). London: J. Murray.

Kramer, Samuel Noah (1983). “The Weeping Goddess: Sumerian Prototypes of the Mater Dolorosa” (http://www.Jstor.org/stable/3209643). The Biblical Archaeologist. 46 (2): 69–80. doi:10.2307/3209643 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F3209643). JSTOR 3209643 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3209643). S2CID 194480905 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:194480905)

Sachs, Curt (2012) [1940]. The History of Musical Instruments (https://books.google.com/books?id=W615TIDz97UC). Mineola: Dover Publications Paragraph 18

Polin, Claire C.J. (1974) [1974]. Music of the Ancient Near East. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-8371-5796-X.

Krispijn, Theo J. H. (2010). “Musical Ensembles in Ancient Mesopotamia”. In Dumbrill, Richard; Finkel, Irving (eds.). Proceedings of the International Conference of Near Eastern Archaeomusicology (ICONEA 2008), The British Museum, London, December 4–6, 2008. London: Iconea Publications. Pg. 125–150.

Duchesne-Guillemin, Marcelle (February 1981). “Music in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt”. World Archaeology. 12 (3): 287–297. doi:10.1080/00438243.1981.9979803 (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F00438243.1981.9979803). JSTOR 124240 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/124240) Pg 288