The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body

Author - Steven Mithen ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Harvard University Press was reviewed on 16-Oct-2008.

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1) Paperback Book The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body by Harvard University Press. I have long suspected that music must be connected to language and that the evolution of language was somehow linked to our musical ability. Steven Mithen´s exploration of this subject leaves me reflective, impressed and with a great deal to think about. His scientific curiosity -- as we have seen in both The Prehistory of the Mind: A Search for the Origins of Art, Science and Religion (1998) and in Before the Ice (2003) -- is epic in scope and yet critical in its method and approach to data (or the lack of it).

In this book, Mithen culls together a trove of evidence relating to the possible origins of music in our species´ evolutionary past. I think it needs to be granted from the outset that such a subject is not going to have the same kind of hard, precise evidence that something like skeletal evolution or the evolution of upright walking has in its favor. Given this, Mithen does a superb job of marshalling what evidence there is for music´s origin and evolution, and makes you believe it possible, even as you remain critical of his hypotheses. You can see the weakness of some of the lines in his argument, but also the strength of others. Mithen seems humble enough before his subject, without getting wishy-washy in the face of the gray areas of uncertainty.

All together, a fascinating read; very informative--and courageous. This book will stand as a defense of music -- against its detractors (such as Steven Pinker) as a valuable part of our cultural human ´tool kit´ until even more archaeological and paleoanthropological evidence becomes available.¤

2) Paperback Book The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body by Harvard University Press. If you love music and powerful feelings it evokes, then you´ll love the author´s incisive and clear-headed style as he unwraps the origins of music.¤

3) Paperback Book The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body by Harvard University Press. Mithen is a well-published serious evolutionary psychologist, and this book is therefore carefully grounded in current understandings of biological evolution and its relevance to the development of human capacities. His argument is that musical and linguistic abilities are separate evolutionary developments and that whereas in Homo sapiens the linguistic has undercut the role of the more primordial musical; Neanderthals exploited the musical but did not develop linguistic capacities. Mithen´s argument is admittedly speculative: he often argues from silence, for instance. But these speculations are informed extrapolations, and exploring them with his help is a highly stimulating, mind-expanding experience.¤

4) Paperback Book The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body by Harvard University Press. This book so wants to demonstrate that music was a crucial component of human evolution, as if the author, Steven Mithen, wants to explain why he felt the subconscious need to spend so much money on CDs by Queensryche, but he ultimately fails to prove causality. There is nothing inherent in music creation that helped the human species survive the ravages of hunger, disease, pestilence, and war. There was no "battle of the bands" being waged on the prehistoric Serengeti plain to demonstrate defiance of environmental pressures to adapt. Much of this book is pure conjecture, and Mithen again demonstrates that scientists are the worst group of people to explain music to anyone.¤

5) Paperback Book The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body by Harvard University Press. +++++

"The Neanderthals who inhabited Europe and south-west Asia had brains as large as those of modern humans but behaved in a quite different fashion, one that indicates the absence of language...So, what were the Neanderthals doing with such large brains?...Answer: the Neanderthals used their brains for a sophisticated communication system...[that I call] `Hmmmmm´...
´Hmmmmm´...proved remarkably successful: it allowed them to survive for a quarter of a million years through dramatic environmental change in ice-age Europe, and to attain an unprecedented level of cultural achievement. They were ´singing Neanderthals´--although their songs lacked any words."

The above quotation comes near the end of this fascinating book (and explains its title) by Dr. Steven Mithen, Professor of Early Prehistory (at the University of Reading, England), archeologist, and leading figure in the development of `cognitive archeology.´

What is the aim of this book? Mithen explains:

"We can only explain the human propensity to make and listen to music by recognizing that it has been encoded into the human genome during the evolutionary history of our species. How, when, and why are the mysteries that I intend to resolve [in this book]...This book sets out my own ideas about how music and language evolved, and evaluates the proposals of others by exposing them to the archaeological and fossil evidence...The result is a complete account of not only how music and language evolved but how they relate to the evolution of the human mind, body, and society."

As one who thoroughly enjoyed this book, I can validate what Mithen says above. He does examine a large array of data and proposals from many others and critically analyzes this information. Be aware that to understand the book´s conclusions (one of which is quoted above), you have to carefully read and comprehend all the material presented beforehand. Mithen proved (at least to me) that he was well-adept at sorting through all the neurological, linguistical, psychological, biological, and archeological information (to name just some disciplines he delves into). (Don´t worry! Mithen explains everything quite well so you´re not expected to be an academic with a Ph.D.)

The book itself is divided into two parts. The first part (excluding chapter one which is an introduction) is concerned with what we understand about music and language today. Part two uses those features presented in part one to explain the evolutionary history of language and music.

To give the potential reader an idea of the breadth of this book, I will give the sub-title of each chapter:

Part I: The Present

(2) The similarities and differences between music and language
(3) The brain, aphasia (loss of using or understanding words), and musical savants
(4) Acquired and congenital amusia (inability to recognize or reproduce musical sounds)
(5) Music processing within the brain
(6) Brain maturation, language learning, and perfect pitch
(7) Music, emotion, medicine, and intelligence

Part II: The Past

(8) Communication by monkeys and apes
(9) The origin of `Hmmmm´ (an acronym) communication
(10) The evolution of bipedalism and dance
(11) Communication about the natural world
(12) Is music a product of sexual selection?
(13) Human life history and emotional development
(14) The significance of cooperation and social bonding
(15) `Hmmmmm´ communication by "Homo neanderthalensis" (Compare this acronym to that of (9) above)
(16) The origins of "Homo Sapiens" and the segmentation of `Hmmmmm´
(17) Modern human dispersal, communicating with the gods, and the remnants of ´Hmmmmm´

There are twenty figures peppered throughout this book. These are interesting and aid the discussion.

Finally, did I agree with everything I read in this book? Of course not. What Mithen is attempting to do is extremely difficult. There has to be some speculation and there is much of it in this book. However, it is reasoned speculation and I was impressed with how Mithen put everything together into a coherent whole.

In conclusion, this book attempts to explain the mystery of "the origins of music, language, mind and body." If you like mysteries like I do, then you should thoroughly enjoy this fascinating book!!

(first published 2005; 17 chapters; main narrative 280 pages; notes; bibliography; picture acknowledgements; index)

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6) Paperback Book The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body by Harvard University Press.

The propensity to make music is the most mysterious, wonderful, and neglected feature of humankind: this is where Steven Mithen began, drawing together strands from archaeology, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience--and, of course, musicology--to explain why we are so compelled to make and hear music. But music could not be explained without addressing language, and could not be accounted for without understanding the evolution of the human body and mind. Thus Mithen arrived at the wildly ambitious project that unfolds in this book: an exploration of music as a fundamental aspect of the human condition, encoded into the human genome during the evolutionary history of our species.

Music is the language of emotion, common wisdom tells us. In The Singing Neanderthals, Mithen introduces us to the science that might support such popular notions. With equal parts scientific rigor and charm, he marshals current evidence about social organization, tool and weapon technologies, hunting and scavenging strategies, habits and brain capacity of all our hominid ancestors, from australopithecines to Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals to Homo sapiens--and comes up with a scenario for a shared musical and linguistic heritage. Along the way he weaves a tapestry of cognitive and expressive worlds--alive with vocalized sound, communal mimicry, sexual display, and rhythmic movement--of various species.

The result is a fascinating work--and a succinct riposte to those, like Steven Pinker, who have dismissed music as a functionless evolutionary byproduct.

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 13-Nov-2008, 06740255989780674025592, 360-9X0-250-970-980-351-8

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