MUSIC and LANGUAGE: The Singing Neanderthal

Music moves the human body (our feet tap, our bodies sway) and the human heart (our emotions beat in time to a song’s pulse). Every child in every society creates music, defined to include song and dance: it’s a fundamental activity of Homo sapiens.

Given its emotional power, it’s odd to discover that music’s evolutionary history has been neglected. Theories about the origins of technology and language crowd anthropologists’ shelves, but most evolutionists fall silent about music. In The Singing Neanderthal: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body, British archaeologist Steven Mithen sets out to redress this gap.

Read a review of the book here.