Human Sciences

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.

The construction of formal measurement systems underlies the development of science, technology, economy and new ways of understanding and explaining the world. Human societies have developed such systems in different ways, in different places and at different times, and recent archaeological investigations highlight the importance of these activities for fundamental aspects of human life. Measurement systems have provided the structure for addressing key concerns of cosmological belief systems, as well as the means for articulating relationships between the human form, human action, and the world. The Archaeology of Measurement explores the archaeological evidence for the development of measuring activities in numerous ancient societies, as well as the implications of these discoveries for an understanding of their worlds and beliefs.

The dawn of art is sometimes equated with the birth of the human spirit. But when and how did figuration - sculpture, painting, drawing - actually begin? And did these first figurative creations coincide with the emergence of our own species, Homo sapiens? Is figuration a general and fundamental feature of the human condition? In this challenging volume leading experts review the evidence now available from the worldwide practice of prehistoric archaeology, and go on to formulate some important conclusions. The scope of this work is global. It sets out to explore the first stirrings of artistic endeavour and of figurative imagery on each continent, and to consider the social context in which they arose. It will be a fundamental resource for all those seeking to understand the origins of art and the beginnings of human spirituality.

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.

Neuropsychological and developmental studies suggest human musical ability has a deep evolutionary history; but we do not find evidence of the manufacture and use of instruments, with which musical behaviours have often been assumed to be equated, until 70,000 years after the advent of Homo sapiens. This anomaly is addressed by examining the evidence from the fossil record for the evolution of the physiology and neurology required for musical behaviours, with the aim of identifying the development of the physiological and neurological capacity to produce and process melody and/or rhythm.

Aural and vocal sophistication appear to have developed in tandem, beginning with full bipedalism around 1.75 million years ago, until a vocal apparatus similar to the modern was present in Homo heidelbergensis 400,000–300,000 years ago. Prosodic and structural aspects of both speech and music production and processing are lateralized in the brain in similar ways suggesting evolutionarily-shared foundations for these mechanisms.

The Upper Palaeolithic in Europe sees the first incontrovertible archaeological evidence for musical behaviour in humans, in the form of bone items which have been variously interpreted as flutes, pipes or whistles. In addition, there are items which may be interpreted as rasps and bullroarers, as well as evidence for the use of the natural acoustic environment. In contrast, the Mesolithic of Europe has received relatively little investigation with respect to this aspect of behaviour. This chapter asks why there is a relative dearth of evidence of such activity in the Mesolithic: is it an issue of the choice of raw materials being used for the manufacture of such objects, and their preservation? Is it that such activities were no longer being performed? Indeed, is there a true scarcity of evidence, or is the evidence simply not well represented in the literature? These are questions to which this chapter may go some way towards answering, but only more detailed and critical examination of these finds, and of new finds in the future, will truly shed light on these issues.

The reputed Neanderthal ‘flute’ from the Slovenian site of Divje babe I has stimulated much interest and detailed research since the original publication of its discovery in 1997. In spite of nearly ten years’ worth of analysis and discussion its status as an artefact has remained ambiguous; nevertheless it is still frequently cited as a ‘flute’.

This paper examines in detail the full body of literature and research regarding this object, and finds that much of the ambiguity regarding the object’s status derives from the literature itself. It ultimately concludes that it is not necessary to invoke hominin agency in explaining the features of the bone.

This paper discusses the roles of time and cycles in the ritual behaviour of several societies, and the implications of the understanding of such phenomena for the formation of beliefs about the world. It also elaborates on a number of issues associated with considering the nature, purposes and motivations for ritual activity, including discussion of the definition of ritual and religion, and the problems of the distinction between religious and secular.

This chapter discusses in detail the record of hand prints and stencils from Palaeolithic Europe as a form of figurative representation. Following a discussion of conceptual problems in our approach to interpreting Palaeolithic representations, it examines the significance of the processes of their production and the experience of their creation for their meaning, and critically examines previous explanations for their meaning as symbol systems.

"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. "

This chapter discusses fundamental parallels between ritual practice and musical activity, in terms of their forms, roles, interdependencies, and effects on participants. It goes on to discuss the implications of these parallels for the understanding and interpretation of these activities, with particular reference to the Palaeolithic.

"Music is possessed by all human cultures, and archaeological evidence for musical activities pre-dates even the earliest-known cave art.

Music has been the subject of keen investigation in many fields, from neuroscience and psychology to ethnography, archaeology, and its own dedicated field, musicology. Despite the great contributions that these studies have made, much remains mysterious about this ubiquitous human phenomenon - not least, its origins.

In a ground-breaking study, this volume brings together evidence from all these fields, and more, in investigating the evolutionary origins of our musical abilities, the nature of music, and the earliest archaeological evidence for musical activities amongst our ancestors.

Seeking to understand the true relationship between our unique musical capabilities and the development of the remarkable social, emotional, and communicative abilities of our species, it will be essential reading for anyone interested in music and human physical and cultural evolution."

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.

The diverse forms and functions of human music place obstacles in the way of an evolutionary reconstruction of its origins. In the absence of any obvious homologues of human music among our closest primate relatives, theorizing about its origins, in order to make progress, needs constraints from the nature of music, the capacities it engages, and the contexts in which it occurs. Here we propose and examine five fundamental constraints that bear on theories of how music and some of its features may have originated. First, cultural transmission, bringing the formal powers of cultural as contrasted with Darwinian evolution to bear on its contents. Second, generativity, i.e. the fact that music generates infinite pattern diversity by finite means. Third, vocal production
learning, without which there can be no human singing. Fourth, entrainment with perfect synchrony, without which there is neither rhythmic ensemble music nor rhythmic dancing to music. And fifth, the universal propensity of humans to gather occasionally to sing and dance together in a group, which
suggests a motivational basis endemic to our biology. We end by considering the evolutionary context within which these constraints had to be met in the genesis of human musicality.

David Hume argued that values are the projections of natural human desires, and that moral values are the projections of desires that aim at the common good of society. Recent developments in game theory, evolutionary biology, animal behaviour and neuroscience explain why humans have such desires, and hence provide support for a Humean approach to moral psychology and moral philosophy. However, few philosophers have been willing to pursue this naturalistic approach to ethics for fear that it commits something called ‘the naturalistic fallacy’. This paper reviews several versions of the fallacy, and demonstrates that none of them present an obstacle to this updated, evolutionary version of Humean ethical naturalism.