When do we start singing?
Geissenkloesterle (Germany), 42,000 years ago. Those living in the cave of the Danube basin made a flute with bird bones and mammoth ivory. At the same time, the inhabitants of the cave of Divje Babe in Slovenia also made a flute with the femur of a bear. These are the oldest instruments found and dated so far. And therefore, we know that by then music was already made. But hominids don't need instruments to make music, they just need their voice.
530,000 years ago hominids had the hyoid bone in almost the same position. I mean, they had the physical ability to make sounds and sing. What do we start before, to speak or to sing? The theory that music and language have the same origin has been the subject of debate in recent decades.
Researchers at the University of Keio (Japan) Yuto Ozaki and Patrick Savage recently published a study on this topic in the journal Science Advances. After analyzing songs, melodies and speeches from 50 languages, they have hinted that music evolved as a more effective and emotional form of communication.
After analyzing songs, melodies and speeches from 50 languages, they have hinted that music evolved as a more effective and emotional form of communication.
In addition, Savage himself has recently participated in another study, led by San Passmore, of the National University of Australia. The free Global Jukebox database has compared the styles and geographic origins of about 5,000 songs with databases that collect genetic and linguistic diversity. The results show that musical history is not as closely related to language and genetics as was thought, but is closer to other markers, such as social organization.
These studies corroborate that the relationship between music and language is complex and diverse. They suggest that music facilitated language development by establishing a structural basis for oral communication. The work has not given a concrete answer to the question of the title. But they serve to dig a little bit deeper into the connection between the evolution of our species and music.
Tennessee (United States), 1820. The slave Nathan Green is born, known as Nearest Uncle or Nearest Uncle. We do not know exactly when he was born and, in general, we have very little data about him until 1863, when he achieved emancipation. We know that in the late 1850s Dan... [+]
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Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have discovered several cylinders with inscriptions at the present Syrian Reservoir, the Tell Umm-el Marra. Experts believe that the signs written in these pieces of clay can be alphabetical.
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London 1928. At the Victoria and Albert Museum there was a very special painting: in the painting there is a black man, with wig and Levite, surrounded by books and scientific instruments. Thus it was catalogued in the Museum: “Unique satirical portrait representing a failed... [+]
Ethiopia, 24 November 1974. Lucy's skeleton was found in Hadar, one of the oldest traces of human ancestors. The Australian hominid of Australopithecus afarensis is between 3.2 and 3.5 million years old.
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A group of archaeologists from the University of Berkeley, California, USA. That is, men didn't launch the lances to hunt mammoths and other great mammals. That was the most widespread hypothesis so far, the technique we've seen in movies, video games ...
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A group of interdisciplinary researchers from the Free University of Berlin and the Zuse Institute have developed a complex mathematical model to better understand how Romanization spread in North Africa.
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While working at a site in the Roman era of Normandy, several archaeology students have recently made a curious discovery: inside a clay pot they found a small glass jar, of which women used to bring perfume in the 19th century.
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Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States launched an atomic bomb causing tens of thousands of deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; although there are no precise figures, the most cautious estimates indicate that at least 210,000 people died at the end of that year. But in... [+]
A team of researchers led by the Japanese archaeologist Masato Sakai of the University of Yamagata has discovered numerous geoglyphs in the Nazca Desert (Peru). In total, 303 geoglyphs have been found, almost twice as many geoglyphs as previously known. To do so, researchers... [+]
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