Jiahu And The Cottage Is A New Exploration Of The Prehistoric Bone Flute Excavated

From the view of cultural anthropology, this thesis studied Jiahu bone flute of Neolethic age and bone flute from Zhongshanzhai by using the research methods of musicology, archeaology, and ethnology. The reasons of choosing these two spots are that they both locate in Henan Province, closely in time, with similar archeological culture.Most current studies on Jiahu bone flute were musicological researches on real instrument. But these studies focused less on the social background and human property of the bone flute. The author considered that basic understanding of ancient bone flute can only be drawn by comprehensive study. There are six aspects studied in this thesis. The first one is bone flute and its cultural background. The second one is textile on back of two-hole bone flute of M521:1. The third one is whether the current tone measurement data could resume its nature tune. The forth one is bone flute without finger hole. The fifth one is the finger hole design. The last one is the function of bone flute. The former three ones are not discussed at present. The last one is the focus of current research.By researching, the author thinks that there should be magic activities at the age of Jiahu and the soul permanent idea should exist. There should be grade level in society and male occupied important position. The stria on the back of two-hole bone flute M521:1 should be the main origin of Long-stria. Because there are limited sound data, and sound measuring method, instrument, objective when detecting, errors of recovery, errors of making, it is too early to perform musician studies to reflect original musical status. The non-hole bone pipe found in some ancient tomb were also considered as a kind of instrument by researchers. And multi-hole bone flute was derived from non-hole bone pipe. But by comparing studies, the author thought that the non-hole bone pipe was a kind of decorating object or life tool, not performing instrument. The design method of Jiahu bone flute hole is the focus of current studies about it. Some scholars also think that, at the age of Jiahu, the ancient residents had already mastered high calculation ability and rules of integer numbers calculation. So the hole of bone flute was designed according to the precise calculation. Some scholars also tried to study only one bone flute, trying to find out the whole design methods of the seven-hole bone flute, and to find out its calculating formula. Other scholars took human finger length as measure unit to study the design of hole position. These are discussing focuses at present. In the author's view, the hole of bone flute should be designed according to the ancients' long-term experience, it should be a kind of experienced design. In the past, the researchers studied the bone flute's functions to draw conclusions from measured results. Most scholars considered that the Jiahu bone flute was a musical instrument for entertainment. Other scholars thought that it functioned as not only musical instrument but also magic tool. Some others thought that it was a kind of tool for hunting, entertainment instrument and magic tool. By comparing studies, the author thinks that the early Jiahu bone flute should only functioned as magic tool. At middle and later period, it functioned as both magic tool and musical instrument. The author also thinks that it is impossible to take the bone flute as hunting flute. Because it was enough for hunting flute to sound like animal, there was no need of multi-hole on bone flute to make complex sound.In the past, some researchers considered the bone flute found in ancient tomb at Zhongshanzhai in Ruzhou was possible to function as standard tune, which is now called pitch pipe. By making a copy of bone flute and the comparing the two cultural types, the author thinks that the bone flute found in ancient tomb at Zhongshanzhai in Ruzhou was impossibly a musical instrument, and it had no relation with the Jiahu bone flute.