Jiahu
A Chinese village with playable bone flutes, fermented drink and marks that may prefigure writing.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 1.3 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 200 years
- Era
- Neolithic, Holocene
Jiahu in Henan, occupied from around 7000 BCE, has produced more than thirty flutes made from red-crowned crane wing bones, several still playable and tuned to a scale; residue showing a fermented drink of rice, honey and fruit; early rice cultivation; and turtle shells incised with marks that some have compared to much later Chinese characters — a claim most specialists treat cautiously.