Oldest playable musical instruments found at Jiahu early Neolithic site in China

Juzhong Zhang, Garman Harbottle (), Changsui Wang and Zhaochen Kong
Additional contact information
Juzhong Zhang: Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Henan Province
Garman Harbottle: Brookhaven National Laboratory
Changsui Wang: Archaeometry Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China
Zhaochen Kong: Paleobotany Laboratory, Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica

Nature, 1999, vol. 401, issue 6751, 366-368

Abstract: Abstract Excavations at the early Neolithic site of Jiahu1,2 in Henan Province, China have produced what may be the earliest complete, playable, tightly-dated multinote musical instruments. Jiahu was occupied from 7000 BC to 5700 BC, considerably antedating the well known Peiligang culture3,4,5. Here we describe six exquisitely made complete flutes which were found in radiocarbon-dated excavation layers, along with fragments of perhaps 30 more. The flutes are made from the ulnae of the red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis Millen) and have 5, 6, 7 and 8 holes. The best preserved flute has been played and tonally analysed. In addition to early musical artefacts, the archaeological record at Jiahu1,2 contains important information on the very foundations of Chinese society. We describe the archaeological characteristics of the Jiahu site, details concerning its dating, its place in the prehistory of the Chinese Neolithic, the ethnicity of its population and the results of a tonal analysis of a nearly 9,000-year-old musical instrument found there.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/43865 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:401:y:1999:i:6751:d:10.1038_43865

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/43865

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().