The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, and Body - Hardcover

Mithen, S

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674021924 ISBN 13: 9780674021921

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2008

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

An interesting attempt to probe the long-term history of feeling as well as of thought... [This] book is intelligent, important and clear. Anyone who likes to ask broad questions about intelligence, religion and experience, as well as anyone interested in long-term human history, will be able to read and argue with [this] book with enjoyment and profit. (THES (3/3/06))

There is much illuminating and thought-provoking material. (Ross Leckie THE TIMES)

Wonderfully evocative... a highly original view of our musical origins. (GUARDIAN (1/4/06))

Book Description:

A fascinating and incisive examination of our language instinct from award-winning science writer Steven Mithen.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0674021924
• ISBN 13: 9780674021921
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272