The use of pentatonic scales is extremely cross-cultural, with independent discovery on at least four continents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatonic_scal

The use of pentatonic scales is extremely cross-cultural, with independent discovery on at least four continents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatonic_scale#Use_of_pentatonic_scales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatonic_scale#Use_of_pentat... As far as I can tell, 12 ET is the smallest equal temperament that acceptably encodes the common variants of pentatonic scale. Meanwhile, the pentatonic scale probably appears because (3/2)^5 ≈ 8.