Jiahu Bone Flute and Primitive Music

The bone flute excavated from the Jiahu ruins in Wuyang County of Henan Province is the earliest wind instrument found so far by Chinese archeologists. The flute dates back over 8,000 years. It is about 20 cm long and 1 cm in diameter, with 7 evenly-distributed sound holes of the same size. And a handful of such flutes have an extra small hole beside the last hole.

The making method and process of Jiahu bone flute are very much similar to those of modern-day Chinese wind instruments. According to zoologists' research, Jiahu bone flutes are made with crane ulna bones with the joints at both ends removed. Some bone flutes still bear the marks carved before hole drilling for even distribution, indicating the careful calculation Jiahu people conducted before flute making. The extra small hole on some flutes has been proved by scientists through tone testing to give out two variable sounds. Therefore, the hole serves as a tone adjuster.    

The flute reflects the amazingly high levels of tonality and calculation. Modern musicians can play the pentatonic-scale tune of Little Cabbage (Xiao Baicai) on the flute. These facts indicate that Jiahu people already had the basic ideas about the tone differences and tried to achieve the pitch accuracy. They also had rudimentary understanding of the relations between sound pitch and pipe length.  

The discovery of Jiahu bone flutes has rewritten the history of Chinese music, proving that the seven-tone scale music started some 8,000 years ago. It's a testament to the remarkably high level of music at that time. Meanwhile, the flute is a musical material object kept in the best condition with the best musical function of the world's musical relics of the same time period, holding an equally important position in the world music history as that in China's music history.