Iain Morley

Evolution of the Physiological and Neurological Capacities for Music

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.

Cross-cultural perspectives on music and musicality

Musical behaviours are universal across human populations and, at the same time, highly diverse in their structures, roles and cultural interpretations. Although laboratory studies of isolated listeners and music-makers have yielded important insights into sensorimotor and cognitive skills and their neural underpinnings, they have revealed little about the broader significance of music for individuals, peer groups and communities. This review presents a sampling of musical forms and coordinated musical activity across cultures, with the aim of highlighting key similarities and differences. The focus is on scholarly and everyday ideas about music—what it is and where it originates—as well the antiquity of music and the contribution of musical behaviour to ritual activity, social organization, caregiving and group cohesion. Synchronous arousal, action synchrony and imitative behaviours are among the means by which music facilitates social bonding. The commonalities and differences in musical forms and functions across cultures suggest new directions for ethnomusicology, music cognition and neuroscience, and a pivot away from the predominant scientific focus on instrumental music in the Western European tradition.

Five fundamental constraints on theories of the origins of music

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.

The Archaeology of Measurement: The Archaeology of Measurement

The archaeology of measurement , The archaeology of measurement , کتابخانه، موزه و مرکز اسناد مجلس شورای اسلامی

Ritual, Play and Belief, in Evolution and Early Human Societies

Ritual, Play, and Belief in Evolution and Early Human Societies examines ritual in prehistoric human societies using information derived from cognitive and evolutionary studies. Specifically, the volume focuses on the relationships between ritual and play behaviors in animals and humans and how the similarities in both suggest the “deeprooted biological foundations of play” (p. 1). A second and related overarching theme investigates the relationships between play, ritual, and rule-structured games in early human societies. The contributors come from a variety of disciplines including archaeology, psychology, and evolutionary biology. This diversity is reflected both in the different subjects presented in each chapter and the lines of evidence used, including animal behavioral studies, fossil data, archaeological materials, and textual sources, among others. The chapters in this volume are organized into three sections centered around three major themes. Chapters 1 and 2 serve as introductory chapters, with chapter 2 presenting several different definitions of the volume’s key concepts as understood within the relative disciplines of the book’s contributors. The first organized section (chapters 3 through 7) looks specifically at play behaviors in animals and humans and the evolutionary and ecological processes relating them. Arguably, through play young animals develop moral behaviors as well as a sense of fairness (chapter 3); moreover, play is a functional activity with real biological costs (chapter 4). Chapter 5 and chapter 6 use evolutionary and development perspectives to look at pretend play, which both present as a distinctive feature of play in human children. In particular, chapter 6 uses brain size and dental development to identify different life stages in fossil hominins and explores how and when play behavior evolved with respect to human

Introducing Ritual, Play and Belief, in Evolution and Early Human Societies

The origins of religion and ritual in humans have been the focus of centuries of thought in archaeology, anthropology, theology, evolutionary psychology and more. Play and ritual have many aspects in common, and ritual is a key component of the early cult practices that underlie the religious systems of societies in all parts of the world. This book examines the formative cults and the roots of religious practice from the earliest times until the development of early religion in the Near East, China, Peru, Mesoamerica and beyond. Here, leading prehistorians, biologists and other specialists bring a fresh approach to the early practices that underlie the faiths and religions of the world. They demonstrate the profound role of play in ritual and belief systems and off er powerful new insights into the emergence of early societies.