Bone flute, Neolithic Peiligang Culture (about 6100-5000 BC), 23.1 cm long. Unearthed in Jiahu, Wuyang, Henan, 1986-1987. Collection of Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology

More than 20 bone flutes made of crane wing bones were unearthed at the Jiahu site in Wuyang. The bone pipes of these bone flutes are engraved with equal division marks, indicating that they have been carefully calculated before drilling, and some of them have also used small holes to adjust the pitch difference of individual sound holes after they are made. After sound testing, the seven-hole bone flute can play eight tones (seven percussion, one barrel), which constitute a six-tone or seven-tone scale.

The discovery of the Jiahu bone flute in Wuyang shows that our ancestors had adopted the heptatonic scale as early as seven or eight thousand years ago. These bone flutes are the earliest real musical instruments in China, indicating that during the Peiligang culture in the mid-Neolithic period, people had begun early musical practices and successfully made musical instruments.