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One of the strongest archaeological hints that stringed instruments existed tens of thousands of years ago, is found in France at Trois‑Frères cave
The ‘sorcerer’ figurine has been dated to more than 10 thousand years ago and maybe shown with a musical bow. Some musicologists interpret it as a musical bow rather than a weapon because he appears to pluck or hold the bow with the front of the mouth.

But we almost never find paleolithic and neolithic string instruments. The materials would have been: wood, sinew, gut, plant fiber, and horse hair
These materials decay quickly and rarely survive more than a few thousand years.

They consists of: a flexible, usually wooden, stick 1.5 to 9 feet long, that is strung end to end with a taut or cord
It can be played with the mouth, hands; or, wooden stick, branch or bottlegourd.

Archaeology does show that bows and arrows likely existed at least 60 to 70 thousand years ago in Africa; and, arrow heads appear in Eurasia there after
Once a bow exists. Turning it into a musical instrument requires only plucking the string. Which is why archaeomusicologists often stay it maybe the earliest chordophone.

At Pacmarhi rock shelter in India, paintings appear to show curved bow instruments with bottlegourd or resonators
Though exact dating is debated. It could also represent musical bows, and some of the earliest harps. Arched harps are widely believed to evolve directly from musical bows.

Because the design is extremely simple, many scholars suspect it could be tens of thousands of years old culturally
While we do not yet have Paleolithic string instruments, we do have clear evidence of very early musical culture. Like Hohle fels Cave bone flute, Geissenklösterle Cave flutes and others. Dating the paleo and upper paleolithic.

There is no preserved paleolithic stringed instrument yet. But several clues remain such as Trois‑Frères cave.

Ancestors of harps, lyres, & guitars. The existence of musical bows, or single-string instruments derived from hunting bows. Check it out with some more neolithic architecture today.

Bibliography: Bo Lawergren (1988). “The Origin of Musical Instruments and Sounds”. Anthropos. 83 (1/3) (83 ed.). Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH: 36. JSTOR 40461485 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/40461485).

Thorpe, A. What we know now about how ancient archers made their bows History. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/ancient-archery-neolithic-bowstrings

Joep Bor (1986–1987). “The Voice of the Sarangi, An Illustrated History of Bowing in India” (https://archive.org/details/MusicRes-Periodicals). National Center for Performing Arts Quarterly Journal. 15 & 16: 38–47. “[Three issues of this quarterly journal were combined into one; Volume 15 (issues 3 and 4) and Volume 16 (issue 1).]”

Sachs, Curt (1940). The History of Musical Instruments (https://archive.org/details/historyofmusical00sach). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 136–137 (https://archive.org/details/histor yofmusical00sach/page/136). ISBN 9780393020687

Donald Keith Robotham. “African music Musical bows”(https://www.britannica.com/art/African-music#ref519723). britannica.com

Garcia, Alfredo (5 October 2014). “EL ARTE RUPESTRE PALEOLÍTICO EN LAS CUEVAS FRANCESAS. LA CUEVA DE LASCAUX “[Concerning a pair of images below the text; the top image is a line drawing showing a herd of animals drawn over one another with the hunter and bow in the pack; the other image is a photo of the cave wall with that image, enhanced to show the hunter and animals directly in front of him distinctly:] En Les Trois Frères destacaría su estilo tan naturalista… Es famosa la escena que del hombre camuflado como un bisonte, ¿Un chamán o un cazador?, que persigue o conduce a otros animales y que he destacado del conjunto superpuesto de abajo.” [In Les Trois Frères I would highlight his naturalistic style…The scene is famous, that of the man camouflaged to resemble a bison, (a shaman or a hunter?), that pursues or leads other animals, and that I have stood out from the set superimposed below…] algargosarte.blogspot.com. Archived from the original on 2 September 2018.

Walter, Eugene Victor (1988). Placeways: A Theory of the Human Environment. “a semi-human figure dances in the midst of the animals…herding the beasts and playing a musical bow. He wears the head and fur of a bison with human legs…” Chapel Hill, North Carolina: UNC Press Books. Pg. 89. ISBN 978-0-8078-1758-2.