Why Do People Sing? Music in Evolution

Why do People Sing? Music in Evolution by Alexander Jikuridze, Alexander Jordania

1. Human singing is one of the greatest mysteries of human evolution. Charles Darwin was one of the first people to be puzzled by this phenomenon. in “The Descent of Man” he wrote: “As neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are faculties of the least use to men in reference to his daily habits of life, they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which he is endowed”
2. There is no human culture without singing, but singing plays a very different role in various cultures.
3. Generalizations are always dangerous, but we could say that when people lose links with their traditional culture, the role of singing decreases in a society. That’s why in many western societies people generally sing less than people in more traditional societies. Interestingly, together with the decline of singing in the general population of Western cultures, there is also a contrasting development: plenty of studies strongly suggest that singing in a choir is good for your psychological and physical wellbeing. As a result, there is an increasing popularity of singing and participation in community choirs in western countries.
4. The exception – a scholar’s only true friend. Scholars formulate plenty of new hypotheses to explain existing facts. In the process of creating a new hypothesis, scholars are often carried away by the long list of facts that fit comfortably into their hypothesis, and therefore neglect the facts which do not fit their hypothesis. These ‘misfit’ facts are labeled ‘exceptions’. Understandably, scholars usually dislike exceptions. Sometimes scholars push exceptions to coerce into their hypothesis, in other times they try to discredit the fact or the source where the fact came from. And if nothing helps, notorious sayings like ‘no rule without exceptions,’ or even worse, ‘exception proves the rule,’ are always at hand. But of course, to a nonbiased person it is clear that an exception cannot prove the rule, and that a rule with ‘exceptions’ is actually a bad rule. My favorite literary hero, brilliant analytic Sherlock Holmes once said: “I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule”. I agree with Holmes and consider the saying ‘exception proves the rule’ as the last resort for a wrong hypothesis. So what is in reality an exception? Exception is a scholar’s best friend, the only true friend that tells the bitter truth. Do not listen to the calming array of facts that prove your hypotheses, they are like many flattering friends who are ready to lie to you in order to make you a happier person. Listen to your only true friend – exception. And only if this friend is silent, not complaining of any facts that do not fit your idea, you can be truly happy. One exception can outweigh dozens of proving facts. There is no greater proof for your hypothesis than the absence of an exception.
5. Milk Drinking Syndrome and origins of European Polyphony: Many readers of this book might not be aware that different human populations differ drastically from each other according to their ability to absorb milk. It was found, for example, that African Americans have a much higher percentage of people who cannot absorb milk compared to European Americans. later studies suggested that the number of populations that have problems with milk is quite big, and includes populations of sub-Saharan Africa, Arabs, most of the Jews, most Asian populations, Australian aborigines and Melanesians. And finally, in the 1970s, scholars came to the quite amazing conclusion that with some minor exceptions, the only major population on our planet that can drink milk without complications is the population of North and central Europe and their descendants. If we take into account that most of these scholars were Europeans themselves, and for them drinking milk was a very natural part of their life, it is not difficult to understand this kind of initial unconscious ‘European arrogance’ towards other populations of the world. From the end of the 1970s it has been acknowledged that although very young children of every human population naturally drink milk, it is a norm for most human populations that as children grow, they lose the ability to absorb lactose and to drink milk. Therefore it is the North and central European adult population’s ability to absorb milk, if we may say so, that is ‘out of the human norm’. after this fact became known, the embarrassing earlier complaints from many parts of the world about the ‘no quality food provision’ for the developing countries were understood, and humanitarian aid programs correspondingly had to adjust their policy of providing huge quantities of milk powder to the starving populations of third world countries, who could not actually drink milk. This methodologically interesting case teaches us a very important lesson – not to extrapolate European experience to other populations of the world. In my 2006 book I suggested the term ‘Milk Drinking syndrome’ for similar cases when European experience is unjustly extrapolated on the rest of the world.
6. Rise of Andean Mountains and the origins of Polyphony: Just a week after his 26th birthday, while resting in a forest, Charles Darwin experienced a major earthquake that struck Chile on 20th February of 1835. Walking a few days after the earthquake on the beach, Charles noticed that some mollusks that always live on the rocks under the water were now on the rocks well above the water level. Darwin made a correct conclusion that the recent earthquake was to blame for this, and on a bigger historic scale he concluded that series of such earthquakes during many millions of years were responsible for the actual rise of the surface and the creation of the huge range of Andean mountains. Darwin correctly understood the historical dynamics of landscape changes and the rest was a question of multiplying the results of small time span changes (that humans can observe) into a large evolutionary scale that humans cannot observe. Some things are incredibly slow. For example both American continents are moving westwards about the same speed as nails grow on your fingers. To notice and understand this kind of slow developments, we need to study the historical dynamics. The question of historical dynamics is absolutely crucial for the correct understanding of any process that goes for centuries and millennia, including the process of the origins of vocal polyphony.
7. Singing is so central for human cultures that no one ever questioned the universality of singing. The question which we are going to address in this chapter is which of the many functions of singing was possibly the initial core one that gave music its unique position in the life of every human society. Was it possibly the Mother-child relationship as Ellen Dissanayake proposed? Or charming the opposite sex as Charles Darwin and Geoffrey Miller argued? Or establishing cohesiveness in human society as John blacking suggested? Or possibly singing is just an outgrowth of human language as Spencer thought? Or even simpler, was singing just an evolutionarily useless tool invented for auditory pleasing our ears as Steven Pinker suggested?
8. During the 20th century many new facts appeared pointing to the unique emotional and psychological power of music. For example, in the first world war it was found that playing music to patients during the surgical operations allowed doctors to use almost half the regular dosage of the painkillers; it was also found that music can help to rehabilitate patients with strokes and severe mental disability. As a result of such findings, music therapy deservedly became one of the quickly developing spheres of musical research. Apart from such practical findings, there were very interesting theoretical findings as well. For example, it was found that music has unexpectedly deep roots in the human brain, and that listening and making music involves deep and ancient brain structures which are only activated for crucial for survival purposes; we also learned that virtually all newborn babies have absolute pitch (which is rare even among professional musicians), and the fact that all newborn babies cry at the same pitch, at the pitch known to us as ‘A’.
9. Charles Darwin criticized Spencer’s idea of the music being an outgrowth of human speech, and suggested that music predated the origin of language, serving the needs of sexual selection through charming the opposite sex with musical prowess. Maybe even more importantly, Darwin famously declared ‘as neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are faculties of the least use to men in reference to his daily habits of life, they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious [phenomenon] he is endowed.’
10. Whether singing is dangerous or not depends on where you live. For the animal species who live in the trees, for some reason, singing does not seem to be dangerous, but for species who reside on the ground singing is deadly dangerous. If you do not believe this assertion look at the statistics: almost all of the singing species that we know today live high on the treetops, such as birds and gibbons. Not a single animal species that lives on the ground sings. There is only one exception, only one species which lives on the ground and sings: humans. Yes, let us repeat one more time: we are the only species on our planet who live on the ground and can sing. Even amongst animal species that live in the water there are at least a few singers like whales, dolphins, seals and sea lions, but not among ground living species.
11. I suggest that this is the main reason why tree-dwelling species feel more secure to sing or to communicate with a wide range of vocal signals. A leopard or a wild dog can hear the singing of the birds and smaller monkeys from the higher branches of the trees very well, but the singers are well out of their reach.
12. Apparently, humans are very weak compared not only to animals of a similar size, but even much smaller animals. For example, if you put together photos of a common chimpanzee and the legendary Arnold Schwarzenegger, it will be quite difficult to believe the fact that the much smaller chimpanzee is several times stronger than this powerfully built sportsman. Humans look much bigger and stronger than chimpanzees, no questions about that, but when it comes to actual physical strength, chimpanzees and even smaller baboons are much stronger than humans. Therefore, we need to remember that during the course of evolution humans became bigger, but they lost big part of their physical strength.
13. Rhythmic unity brought a few new important features into human defensive singing and made it much more efficient: (1) singing/shouting is physically louder if it is precisely organized rhythmically; (2) rhythmically well-organized group vocalizations send a strong message to the predator about the unity and determination of the group; and (3) doing repetitive rhythmic physical actions in a big group (working, marching) is an extremely effective way to create a strong bond between the members of a human group. But most importantly, I suggest that loud rhythmic chanting-singing shouting, apart from the external function (scaring away predators) had a crucially important internal, psychological function as well.
14. According to recent research by Jonathan Presoak, many American soldiers confess that it would have been impossible for them to get into the required combat spirit if they did not listen to heavy and rhythmic rock music. I hope we all can agree that, when a combat unit goes out for a combat mission, it is of paramount importance that they all are feeling the strength of their unity and an utmost trust towards each other. This feel comes from being in a state of collective identity, in a state of battle trance, and rhythmic music and dance are the best means to put soldiers in the state. I propose that the central function of the rhythmic loud singing was to put our distant ancestors into a very specific altered state of consciousness which I call the ‘Battle Trance.’ This is a very specific state of mind designed by evolution for the most critical moments of life, when the total commitment of every member of the group was needed for a life-or-death fight. This state has several characteristics: (1) humans in a state of battle trance do not feel pain. This state is known as ‘analgesia’; (2) in this state humans also do not feel fear. This state can be called as ‘phobia’; (3) in this state humans may totally neglect their individual survival instincts as they are fighting for something bigger and more important than their own life; (4) in this state humans sometimes demonstrate supernatural strength; lifting cars and doing other things that are beyond their usual physical capabilities; (5) in this state humans lose their individual identity and acquire a different, collective identity, and as a result every member is acting in the best interests of the group, even neglecting the powerful instincts of self-survival. (6) Going into the battle trance may happen instantly, fully instinctively, or can be induced by special ritual-like activities.
15. Among humans this motherly instinct of utmost dedication towards the offspring turned into something different: the total dedication of all members of the group to the interests of the Group they belong to. Like in a well-established combat unit, where in the heat of the battle one can sacrifice his own life to save friend’s life, human ancestors developed the feel of group identity. The feel of group identity is based on the total trust and dedication of each member of the group to the common interest. Group identity kicks in when there is a critical situation, a mortal danger for survival of the group or any of its members. In such moments the noble principle of ‘one for all, all for one’ rules any individual self-preserving instinct, fear and pain. Such human sentiments, like patriotism or religious belonging, are primarily based on this ancient instinct, and the feelings of group identity are becoming particularly strong in the moments of big national or religious upheavals, wars, natural disasters. Going into the battle trance and acquiring group identity can be viewed as a classic example of altruistic behavior, although I want to maintain that humans go into group identity not because of their feeling of duty towards others, but mostly because the powerful forces of evolution designed this mechanism as a better survival strategy for a group and every member of the group. Evolution supplied powerful neurological mechanisms to make this feeling a positive experience. Going into group identity brings the most exhilarating feelings to every member of the group. Every member of the group feels bigger, feels stronger, and virtually feels immortal. You can only become truly immortal if you do not fear death. Group members in such an altered state of mind, when they share total trust with each other, emotionally believe that the group cannot be defeated
16. I am proposing that the mechanism of the battle trance has been designed by the forces of evolution as the highest ranking instinct in the entire hierarchy of human instincts, the instinct that rules our behavior in the most critical situations of life.
17. Want to suggest that our ancestors became very skillful competitors at scavenging opportunities. They were very slow and bad hunters, and they lacked natural weapons to kill a prey, but they became excellent at scaring away all other competitors, including the strongest of the African predators, the lion. So I am suggesting that aggressive or confrontational scavenging was the central means of obtaining food for early hominids. I propose that our distant ancestors were targeting lions and waiting for them to make a kill. As the kill was made, after some special preparation (we will talk about the nature of this ‘special preparation’ very shortly), hominids would approach the feasting pride and would start scaring them away from the kill with the display of loud rhythmic group sound, stomping on the ground, drumming, clapping, threatening body movements, and stone throwing.
18. So we came to the conclusion that the evolutionary function of music was directly connected to the physical survival of our species. It was loud rhythmic music that was preparing humans for confrontations with powerful African predators, instilling boundless bravery into virtually unarmed hominids with only rocks in their hands, turning separate individuals into a unit of dedicated and self-sacrificing warriors, and giving predators a strong message that behind our ancestor’s rhythmic war cry there was a fanatic unity and an absolute dedication from every fighter towards a common goal. As this fanaticism was also supported by the heavy rocks thrown at the closest possible range, no wonder that after countless bloody confrontations on the African savannah, lions started avoiding these kamikaze-style warriors. Lions did not need hominids, as it was too much trouble for them to hunt hominids or to eat them if they managed to kill some of them (about this see later). on the other hand, humans needed lions as ‘professional killers’ and hunters of the big game, who could kill a decent meal for the whole group
19. Even if hominids could stand their ground against the biggest predators during the day, sleeping in the open savannah for the badly armed hominids must have been a very serious challenge. Some insightful ideas were expressed. Adrian Cortland made a brilliant suggestion that one of the ways to secure night time sleep was to organize a loud evening ‘concert’ to scare away potential predators. I would like to suggest that there were at least four more factors to make night time less dangerous for the hominids: (1) reclaiming the dead bodies, (2) cannibalism, (2) the use of eyespots, and (4) smell of the human body
20. When a predator kills its prey, it intends to eat the kill. Prey animals, even after defending their family members with ferocity, usually stop fighting if the attacked member of their group is already dead. Therefore, as soon as the kill is made, there is no more confrontation – the predator got what it wanted, the fight is over and now the predator can enjoy the meal. It was totally different with hominids and humans: being superb masters of intimidation as a group, if their member was killed and taken by a predator, they would follow the predator and reclaim the dead body from the predators. What is the aim of such crazy bravery? Of course, you cannot bring to life the dead member of your group, but with this behavior you can give a strong message to the predator: every time it attacks your group and kills someone, you are not going to give them a chance to eat the dead body in peace. This behavior, repeated generation after generation, would teach predators the lesson that preying on humans was unprofitable. Of course, individual humans are among the worst armed animals, so tracking and killing a human for a leopard, tiger or a lion is much easier than killing an antelope or zebra, but it is a totally different story when it comes to eating the kill. Antelope or zebra family members do not start a massive attack on the predator after the kill is made, much unlike humans. Therefore, from a predator’s point of view, humans are easy to kill but very hard to eat.
21. These two options had different, short-run and long-run consequences. In short run, if you do not eat the dead body, then predators will eat it. You might think this does not matter as the person was already dead, but it did matter in the long run, because if predators can easily obtain and eat human/hominid corpses, there is a good chance that they will become habitual man-eaters.
22. Although this has never been suggested before, I propose we have eyespots, but we fail to notice them because of two reasons: (1) humans are generally not good at noticing eyespots, and also, (2) because we only have them when we sleep. If the reader asks friends or family members to close eyes and looks at their ‘sleeping’ faces, they may notice, that the eyebrows, arched upwards, and eyelashes, arched downwards, form quite visible oval eyespots on a ‘sleeping’ human face.
23. I suggest that the birth of questioning behavior was the birth of human intelligence. We can look at the entire evolution of the human species and the development of human society and civilization from the point of view of an exchange of information and the means available in a society to ask each other questions. The ability to ask questions was the first and truly revolutionary change in the quest to exchange information via direct communication. Human dialogical language, intelligence, mental cooperation and a self-developing brain emerged together with the ability to ask questions. After this we never stopped inventing different ways of asking each other or ourselves questions. At some point we started asking questions using speech (do not forget – we started asking questions before the advance of fully articulated speech!). Then came written language, so our questions could survive time and could be transferred to other places.
24. I hope the readers of this book remember that, according to my model, early humans had two mental states: the ‘ordinary’ state, or the state which was present in everyday non-critical situations, and much more rare ‘critical’ state, which was appearing only when the total dedication of the whole human group was necessary for the physical survival of the group. Although instances of the appearance of the ‘critical’ state were rare, it was crucial for the physical survival of our ancestors. Evolution provided powerful neurological mechanisms to promote the interests of the group over the individual interests when it mattered the most. That’s why in this state our ancestors had a neurochemically-created uplifting feeling, a spiritual disregard of earthly needs including feelings of fear and pain, and had the intoxicating feeling of obtaining a super-personality. In order to achieve this state when it was needed, our ancestors developed elaborate rituals, mostly based on strong rhythms: loud drumming, group singing, group dance, use of verbal formulas or mantras, together with visual elements of personality change: body and face painting, use of clothing and most likely the use of masks. The central goal of human (and even hominid) rituals was to affect the mental state of the participating individuals, to turn their mental state from individual, or ‘everyday’ state into the collective, or ‘critical’ state of mind. This was an amazing transformation of mental state, nothing short of the changing of identity of a whole group of people, turning them from separate individuals into the members of a common single super-personality. Most importantly for us, as physical survival was the biological priority, the orders of the collective or ‘critical’ state of mind were overriding any opposition from the ‘ordinary’ state of mind. The phenomenon known as ‘common sense’ is obviously a product of logical thinking of an individual in ‘ordinary’ state, but the ‘critical’ state of mind produces set of behaviors that often contradict the logic of common sense. In this state a person can do both deeply moral and extremely immoral things, from sacrificing his own life in order to save somebody else’s life on one hand, to doing horrible atrocities during battle on the other hand. Such atrocities, committed in a state of a battle trance (and usually together with the members of the combat unit), are difficult to comprehend from the point of view of common sense, often even for those who actually committed them. Most importantly, I am maintaining that these two ‘ordinary’ and ‘critical’ states of mind are present in the brain of every normal and healthy individual. These two states can be quite independent from each other, similar to two different personalities residing in one brain. In a way, we all have a ‘split personality’ in our healthy brain, but our second personality takes charge only in the most critical moments of our life. So let us remember, in the critical moments of life our ‘critical’ state of mind takes over and overrides all other orders coming from our logical mind. In such moments we go into the extremely focused state of mind, where we instinctively follow either the group behavior (if we are in a group), or follow the orders coming from the external source (for example, a group leader, or a hypnotist), or some other, instinctive and mostly unknown impulses from inside of our own brain.
25. The phenomenon of the post-hypnotic suggestion also proves that the conscious brain cannot resist orders coming from the ‘higher authority’ – the unconscious brain. A person who receives an order while still under the hypnosis (so the order is received by the second identity), will carry out the order after receiving the triggering signal, already in full consciousness, after the session, even if following the order causes a fully conscious person great embarrassment or even some personal danger. Although today hypnotic trance is mostly (although not always) induced to individuals, group hypnosis must have been the original environment for the emergency of this state. I propose that the origins of hypnotic trance must be found in the primordial state of the battle trance, when for the sake of survival a group of individuals were acting as a single organism, with united single conscience and single aim. So I suggest that the individual unconscious was designed by the forces of evolution as a part of a united ‘collective conscience’, to promote the survival of a species. And here let us remember one more time, that loud rhythmic music and loud drumming were the central elements of inducing trance in our ancestors several millions of the year ago in African savannah, and the same method can be used today as well, not only in the shamanic rituals in the native peoples of North Asia or America, but in the comfortable lounge of the hypnotist as well.
26. These two states of mind also refer to two sides of our human nature: individual and social. Like two masks of the ancient tragedy, happy and sad masks, we all have two personalities in a single brain, personalities that might not even know each other very well. Finding the balance between them is crucially important for a healthy and happy mental life. As Jung proposed, music and other arts help us keep the healthy balance between these two sides of our personality. Arts can connect us with our second, hidden, or ‘critical’ identity. I suggest that this mysterious power of different arts, including music, dance, painting, the use of masks, clothing, leading to the artistic transformation and the virtual change of our identity, originate from the ancient ritualistic exhilarating rhythmic dance and song, designed by the forces of evolution during the millions of the years in order to physically survive.
27. Another fascinating side of the ancient ‘critical’ state is that for the normal functioning of our brain in the long run, we need to activate our ‘critical’ state from time to time, in order to feel our ‘second identity’ and to have a healthy relationship between the two sides of our selves. The millions of years of everyday battle and going into the ‘critical’ state of mind, where our ancestors were ready to fight for the higher aim, left us with a legacy where we crave the exhilarating feel of dedication to a higher aim, higher than one’s own life. To experience this feeling, we use very different techniques. With our profoundly social nature, our interdependence on each other, and as a result we are today searching for venues to feel our collective identity in the individualized world. We are all still humans, and we all still crave to experience the same spiritual feeling of being a part of something larger than ourselves. If our personal life is the only thing we are left with, even with all the comfort of contemporary life, but without experiencing ourselves as a part of a something bigger, then we may experience feeling of losing the meaning of life, and this feeling can be the most effective way to induce this feeling
28. Music, dancing, abusing our health with chemical substances, and endangering our life with different activities (climbing mountains, swimming with sharks, doing bungee jumping, petting tigers and lions, running on the tracks in front of the racing cars, and even paying handsome sums of money to arrange our own kidnapping as a newly established service in Paris offers). From the point of view of the common sense some of these activities simply do not make sense. Extremely different in their actual forms and results (from reckless and life-endangering behavior to altruistic religious and community based behavior), these activities are directly or indirectly connected to the activation of our deep brain structures, and involving our ‘second identity’, the ‘critical’, or collective state of our mind.
29. In the new model presented in this book, the role of human singing in human evolution is seen in a very different light. According to the new model, group singing was a crucial factor of hominid physical survival, the central means of defense from predators for our ancestors, and the central means for obtaining food through ‘confrontational scavenging’. It was group singing, together with loud, rhythmic drumming and vigorous body movements that would put our ancestors into a battle trance, create an unseen but powerful mental network between individual humans, and turn all of them into a single, collective super personality through which each member of the unity was religiously dedicated to common interest. Music was creating a mental web for the groups of hominids, or as Benzon brilliantly expressed in his 2001 book, ‘music is a medium through which individual brains are coupled together in shared activity.’ it was the state of battle trance that allowed our distant ancestors to dominate African savannah and made them feared arch-enemies for the kings of the savannah – the mighty lion. Altruistic drive, self-sacrificial dedication, human morality and religion are all the descendants of the ancient battle trance and of the important human principle ‘strength is in unity’. According to this model the birth of human altruistic behavior was not a well calculated ‘you help me and I’ll help you’ mechanism, but it was a necessary psychic state, created by the power of natural selection, for the physical survival of our ancestors.
30. ‘Aposematism’ is the complete opposite strategy of Crypsis. Aposematic species do not try to stay unnoticed. On the contrary, they try to be clearly seen and heard by everyone. Their bodies are decorated in the brightest possible colors to be clearly seen, and they make sounds to let everyone know that predators must keep away from them. The principle of aposematic animals is ‘here I am, I am not afraid, and I am warning everyone to stay away,’ very much like a person singing loudly while walking at night in the forest.
31. Why do we need such a detailed discussion on the principles of aposematism? What does it have to do with human ancestors or with human singing? I am proposing that aposematism was the central defense strategy for our distant ancestors. I am proposing that the elements of Audio-Visual intimidating Display, which we already discussed in the third chapter, constituted a classic set of tools for a multi-channel aposematic display: audio elements (loud rhythmically united singing in harmony and drumming), visual elements (tall bipedal body on long legs, head hair, painted body, use of animal pelts on shoulders), and the olfactory element (body odor). Ironically, if we add the olfactory element to the initial set of audio and visual signals, instead of AViD (Audio-Visual intimidating Display) we will have AVoiD (Audio-Visual-olfactory intimidating Display). With their fierce look, big painted bodies, bipedal threatening posture, threatening movements, loud and rhythmically united sounds, and ability to go into the battle trance and fight fearlessly with heavy and sharp stones, our hominid ancestors were truly a species to avoid.
32. We must remember, that sexual selection has two very different strategies: (1) female choice, and (2) male to male competition (usually known as a ‘male to male combat’). Apart from this well-known division I suggest that we must also differentiate between two related but very
33. No method can provide a scholar with a guaranteed problem solution receipt, but I want to recommend to readers a method that I often use when I am facing a difficult problem. Here is the method: if you are searching for the solution of a problem, at some point try to look at the existing facts from a greater distance, take a wider scope of facts into your account.  
34. We are profoundly social, and we are profoundly musical. Our musicality and social nature had been together for millions of years. Unlike many other species who mostly use music as a means of competition, for us music was primarily a tool for cooperation. That’s why the harmony made together in a group of singing humans is possibly the best symbol of our social nature. Of course, as with every cooperation, musical cooperation was also made as a tool for more successful competition on a bigger, group level. Today we are searching for the factors uniting humanity, and if we manage to find uniting music it will be a big step towards reaching the unity of humanity. The main argument of this book is that the extraordinary strength of musical emotions and the amazing depths of musical centers in our brain comes from our evolutionary past, when singing was crucial for the physical survival of our species for the millions of years. The evolutionary choice that our distant ancestors made, when they did not stop singing on a predator-infested ground, a place where no other species dare to sing, triggered a chain of long transformations leading to Homo sapiens. I suggest that continuing singing was the first crucial evolutionary step towards becoming a homo sapiens, possibly even before our ancestors committed themselves to bipedal locomotion. Through the unique model of behavior, based on living on the ground and trying to be as visible as possible and as loud as possible,
35. Our ancestors developed most of the morphological features we still carry around: bigger body, longer legs, long head hair, hairless skin, eyebrows, small teeth, low male voice. The same model of survival, based on the Audio-Visual-olfactory intimidating Display, triggered plenty of other important behavioral features: bipedalism, making stone tools, dancing, singing in dissonant harmonies, use of body painting, use of clothes, altruistic behavior, prehistoric cannibalism, fanatic dedication to group ideals and aims, strive towards morality and religion, ability of asking questions, appearance of human cognition, intelligence, language, and speech. As a species, we are all the children of our singing ancestors, and with the great evolutionary lullaby for many millions of the years we gradually obtained virtually all of our morphological and behavioral features that make us humans.

What I got out of it

1. A mind-blowing book which gives an alternate view as to why people started singing and how it has impacted human’s evolution. Battle trances, protection, aposematism, so much more. Worth reading in its entirety