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In recent years the relation of music to human evolution has begun to be explored from many different perspectives. In large part, these explorations are motivated by the sense that an evolutionary perspective may be the best way to integrate an understanding of music as a biological phenomenon with an understanding of music as a component of culture. This paper is intended to identify the nature and the sources of the evidence in which explorations of the relations between music and evolution must be rooted in order adequately to address the concerns of musicology, anthropology, archaeology and cognitive science. The principal sources of evidence fall into six categories: functional, phylogenetic, developmental, physiological, ethnographic and archaeological. The first, functional, deals with the social and individual roles of 'music' across cultures, and provides the fundamental delimitation of what can legitimately be construed as 'musical'. The second, phylogenetic, is required to assess the degree of homology between human musical behaviours and 'musical' competences in other species. The third, developmental, provides indications as to the genetic component of sets of behaviours, while the fourth, physiological, sets the boundaries for the possession and exercise of 'musical' capacities and behaviours. The fifth, ethnographic, examines the roles and possible forms and artefacts of music in current lifeways and environments that are similar to ancient lifeways and environments, while the sixth, archaeological, is concerned with the 'hard' evidence of ancient artefacts and their find contexts. The evolutionary perspective on music needs to be examined and its evidentiary bases need to be made explicit in order to elucidate the relation of culture to biology and situate music within that relation as well as, critically, to delimit the implications of an evolutionary view.
The Evolutionary Origins and Archaeology of Music: An Investigation into the Prehistory of Human Musical Capacities and Behaviours This research examines the evidence for the emergence of the capacities underlying musical behaviours, their interrelationship, development and ultimate manifestation in the Palaeolithic. A multidisciplinary approach is taken, and the dissertation falls into four main sections. Section I reviews and analyses ethnographic evidence regarding the use of music in four hunter-gatherer societies. It highlights a number of fundamental similarities between their musics, suggesting shared heritage or convergent development. In these traditions melody is predominantly vocal; instruments are primarily percussive, made of organic materials, and thus unlikely to leave an archaeological trace. Section II comprises a comprehensive synthesis of the archaeological evidence for use of musical instruments in the Palaeolithic. The earliest currently known instruments date to c. 36,000 years ago; the evidence suggests that when modern humans arrived in Europe they were already carrying out developed instrumental behaviours. The diversity of evidence occurring after 30,000 years ago suggests that musical performance, or at least appreciation, was a group activity, rather than one involving a select few. Section III examines the physiological and neurological apparatus involved in the production and processing of musical functions, and their evolution. From Homo ergaster there was co-evolution of various physiological and neurological capacities necessary to carry out vocalizations of increasing tonal range and duration. “Higher” analytical musical and linguistic functions emerged out of shared substrates concerned with vocal emotional expression and comprehension. Section IV analyses the evolutionary bases for musical capacities and their integration. It shows that music, emotional expression and social behaviours, rhythmic and melodic abilities are fundamentally connected and share a heritage with linguistic prosody and corporeal control. Developed skills in these areas have potential selective benefits. A synthesis of the findings from these various disciplines and sources of evidence concludes the thesis, proposing that musical capacities have their foundations in inter-specific tonal emotional vocal expression, and rhythmic-motor coordination of corporeal musculature in the execution of such vocalisations. These increased in complexity throughout the Homo lineage, and diverged from linguistic capacities with the development of lexicon and syntax; symbolic associations and diversity occurred with Homo sapiens, who were carrying out sophisticated instrumental musical behaviours upon their arrival in Europe.
Journal of Anthropological Sciences
A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to the Origins of Music: Perspectives from Anthropology, Archaeology, Cognition and Behaviour2014 •
Archaeological evidence for musical activities pre-dates even the earliest-known cave art and it remains the case that no human culture has yet been encountered that does not practise some recognisably musical activity. Yet the human abilities to make and appreciate music have been described as “amongst the most mysterious with which [we are] endowed” (Charles Darwin, 1872) and music itself as “the supreme mystery of the science of man” (Claude Levi-Strauss, 1970). Like language, music has been the subject of keen investigation across a great diversity of fields, from neuroscience and psychology, to ethnography, to studies of its structures in its own dedicated field, musicology; unlike the evolution of human language abilities, it is only recently that the origins of musical capacities have begun to receive dedicated attention. It is increasingly clear that human musical abilities are fundamentally related to other important human abilities, yet much remains mysterious about this ubiquitous human phenomenon, not least its prehistoric origins. It is evident that no single field of investigation can address the wide range of issues relevant to answering the question of music’s origins. This review brings together evidence from a wide range of anthropological and human sciences, including palaeoanthropology, archaeology, neuroscience, primatology and developmental psychology, in an attempt to elucidate the nature of the foundations of music, how they have evolved, and how they are related to capabilities underlying other important human behaviours. It is proposed that at their most fundamental level musical behaviours (including both vocalisation and dance) are forms of deliberate metrically-organised gesture, and constitute a specialised use of systems dedicated to the expression and comprehension of social and emotional information between individuals. The abilities underlying these behaviours are selectively advantageous themselves; in addition, various mechanisms by which the practice of musical activities themselves could be advantageous are outlined.
"This chapter, within Trevarthen and Malloch's 'Communicative Musicality' volume, discusses approaches to the origins of music, from an evolutionary point of view, the evidence, and its role in human communication. 'Communicative Musicality' explores the intrinsic musical nature of human interaction. The theory of communicative musicality was developed from groundbreaking studies showing how in mother/infant communication there exist noticeable patterns of timing, pulse, voice timbre, and gesture. Without intending to, the exchange between a mother and her infant follow many of the rules of musical performance, including rhythm and timing. This is the first book to be devoted to this topic. In a collection of cutting-edge chapters, encompassing brain science, human evolution, psychology, acoustics and music performance, it focuses on the rhythm and sympathy of musical expression in human communication from infancy. It demonstrates how speaking and moving in rhythmic musical ways is the essential foundation for all forms of communication, even the most refined and technically elaborated, just as it is for parenting, good teaching, creative work in the arts, and therapy to help handicapped or emotionally distressed persons. A landmark in the literature, 'Communicative Musicality' is a valuable text for all those in the fields of developmental, educational, and music psychology, as well as those in the field of music therapy. "
Anthropological Review
Evolutionary origins of music. Classical and recent hypotheses2021 •
The aim of this paper is to review recent hypotheses on the evolutionary origins of music in Homo sapiens, taking into account the most influential traditional hypotheses. To date, theories derived from evolution have focused primarily on the importance that music carries in solving detailed adaptive problems. The three most influential theoretical concepts have described the evolution of human music in terms of 1) sexual selection, 2) the formation of social bonds, or treated it 3) as a byproduct. According to recent proposals, traditional hypotheses are flawed or insufficient in fully explaining the complexity of music in Homo sapiens. This paper will critically discuss three traditional hypotheses of music evolution (music as an effect of sexual selection, a mechanism of social bonding, and a byproduct), as well as and two recent concepts of music evolution - music as a credible signal and Music and Social Bonding (MSB) hypothesis.
Musicae Scientiae
Music and Evolution (Preface to the Special Issue)Music is a human universal. It exists in every known culture, and emerges spontaneously in an early stage of human ontogenetic development. This alone is a strong hint towards some kind of evolutionary origins of music perception and performance. While Darwin himself was somewhat undetermined on how to explain music’s phylogenetic roots, and finally decided for sexual selection as an explanation, the current decade has witnessed an unforeseen boost of theory development and empirical research about the origins of music. [...] This Special Issue [of the scholarly journal Musicae Scientiae, published by Sage] is the first larger compilation of state of the art contributions on Music and Evolution since the turn of the millennium, with 16 peer-reviewed papers on topic.
Musical activity is universal among the human species, and musical instruments over 35,000 years old have been found suggesting that the human preoccupation with music has been an enduring one. But why do humans continually and universally practice music? Darwin also puzzled over this, remarking that, “As neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are faculties of the least direct use to man in reference to his ordinary life, they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which he is endowed” (1871, p. 355). Here I take up Darwin’s concern for music and offer a new theory of its origins. My interdisciplinary approach aims to harmonize biological and cultural considerations by discussing how music functions for both intrapersonal and interpersonal synchronization.
Music is a fascinating topic for evolutionary theory, natural philosophy, and narrative construction: music is a highly valued feature of all known living cultures, pervading many aspects of daily life, playing many roles. And music is ancient. The oldest known musical instruments appear in the archaeological record from 40,000 years ago (40 Kya) and from these we can infer even earlier musical artefacts/activities, as yet unrepresented in the archaeological record. I argue that, following research couched in the social brain hypothesis framework, a theoretical basis is emerging for the proposition that the (incremental) evolution of proto-music took hold in the late mid-Pleistocene, roughly 400 Kya, and perhaps earlier. Subsequently, musical activities and traditions incrementally evolved throughout modernity (from 250 Kya onwards), global dispersal from Africa (currently thought to be from 60-100 Kya onwards), and the Holocene (from 12 Kya). In this article I provide an overview of recent research and a sketch of music's evolutionary career. I identify avenues for future research, including work in the evolution of the emotions, and the application of signalling theory to music archaeology.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
Without it no music: Cognition, biology, and evolution of musicality2015 •
Musicality can be defined as a natural, spontaneously developing trait based on and constrained by biology and cognition. Music, by contrast, can be defined as a social and cultural construct based on that very musicality. One critical challenge is to delineate the constituent elements of musicality. What biological and cognitive mechanisms are essential for perceiving, appreciating and making music? Progress in understanding the evolution of music cognition depends upon adequate characterization of the constituent mechanisms of musicality and the extent to which they are present in nonhuman species. We argue for the importance of identifying these mechanisms and delineating their functions and developmental course, as well as suggesting effective means of studying them in human and nonhuman animals. It is virtually impossible to underpin the evolutionary role of musicality as a whole, but a multicomponent perspective on musicality that emphasizes its constituent capacities, development and neural cognitive specificity is an excellent starting point for a research program aimed at illuminating the origins and evolution of musical behaviour as an autonomous trait.
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