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Hominids' Cave Rave-Ups May Link Music And Speech
Reuters (UK) ^ | 5-31-2006 | Michael Roddy

Posted on 05/31/2006 10:52:10 AM PDT by blam

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1 posted on 05/31/2006 10:52:13 AM PDT by blam
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To: SunkenCiv

GGG Ping.


2 posted on 05/31/2006 10:54:58 AM PDT by blam
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To: blam
"Or is it purely a figment of the imagination of Steven Mithen, professor of early prehistory at the University of Reading in England?"

I think that you've nailed it, Michael.

3 posted on 05/31/2006 11:00:37 AM PDT by davisfh
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To: blam

The Singing Neanderthals...........Mick Jagger's ancestors?.......


4 posted on 05/31/2006 11:01:51 AM PDT by Red Badger (Liberals ignore criminal behavior, reward sloth and revere incompetence...........)
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I'd be more surprised if pre-historic man didn't have some form of music.

Is there any record in history of a society of humans that didn't?

It isn't any stranger to me than prehistoric art.


5 posted on 05/31/2006 11:08:23 AM PDT by D-fendr
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To: blam
Thanks Blam. Another "I hear singing and there's no one there" topic. :')

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

6 posted on 05/31/2006 7:42:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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Neanderthals Sang Like Sopranos
ABC Science News | 3-15-2005 | Jennifer Viegas
Posted on 03/15/2005 8:34:39 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1363597/posts

High notes of the singing Neanderthals
http://www.timesonline.co.uk | 01/30/05 | Jonathan Leake
Posted on 01/30/2005 9:25:53 PM EST by K4Harty
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1332270/posts

Neanderthal Flute
Bob Fink | updated March 1998 | Bob Fink
Posted on 09/12/2005 12:12:33 AM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1482622/posts


7 posted on 05/31/2006 8:34:32 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: DaveLoneRanger

something for your ping list?


8 posted on 05/31/2006 8:53:49 PM PDT by Jedi Master Pikachu (www.answersingenesis.org)
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High notes of the singing Neanderthals
http://www.timesonline.co.uk | 01/30/05 | Jonathan Leake
Posted on 01/30/2005 9:25:53 PM EST by K4Harty
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1332270/posts

Neanderthals Sang Like Sopranos
ABC Science News | 3-15-2005 | Jennifer Viegas
Posted on 03/15/2005 8:34:39 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1363597/posts


9 posted on 08/24/2006 11:12:56 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (updated my FR profile on Thursday, August 10, 2006. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: blam; FairOpinion; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 24Karet; 3AngelaD; ...
just an update to a cool topic:
The Singing Neanderthals
by Steven Mithen
reviewed by Brian Lynch
The Singing Neanderthals theorizes, for example, that in the millennia before the emergence of anything like words or grammar, language and music were one and the same, consisting of tonal utterances that allowed the earliest humans to communicate. Even now, Mithen says, we hear echoes of that musical proto-language whenever we follow the universal impulse to speak to infants in a singsong voice. (Versions of this impulse have even been detected in the willingness of Chinese-speaking parents to alter the important tonal qualities that are built in to all Chinese dialects.)

10 posted on 08/24/2006 11:18:15 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (updated my FR profile on Thursday, August 10, 2006. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body The Singing Neanderthals:
The Origins of Music,
Language, Mind, and Body

by Steven Mithen
paperback


11 posted on 08/24/2006 11:22:38 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (updated my FR profile on Thursday, August 10, 2006. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: blam

Music is poetry; poetry is music. Poetry is how they passed down the old stories before writing existed since poetry has rhythm and meter and is easier to remember and harder to get it wrong and forget or change important stuff.


12 posted on 08/24/2006 11:29:30 AM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the law of the excluded middle)
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To: blam

I love this guys imagination.


13 posted on 08/24/2006 12:18:54 PM PDT by Dustbunny (The BIBLE - Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth)
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To: Dustbunny
Imagination (abstract thinking) is an ability which separates us from our nonhuman ancestors.
14 posted on 08/24/2006 12:46:23 PM PDT by ASA Vet (Deliberate ignorance is a sad thing to witness.)
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To: blam
Gorillas and chimps can be taught to communicate using deaf signing conventions but they cannot be taught to speak English, and that's because they do not have voluntary control over breathing likie we do. Koko, the first gorilla taught to sign, is said to have an understood vocabulary of thousands of English words and understands English speech, but she cannot speak it. The same could easily have been true of neanderthals.

Modern humans have voluntary control over breathing since we apparently originated in water, and control over breathing is a necessary adaptation for swimming.

15 posted on 08/24/2006 3:48:46 PM PDT by tomzz
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To: tomzz
Koko, the first gorilla taught to sign, is said to have an understood vocabulary of thousands of English words

Way more than one needs. Unless one is a gorilla.

16 posted on 08/24/2006 5:34:53 PM PDT by Graymatter
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To: Graymatter

She's said to have an IQ in the area of about a hundred.


17 posted on 08/24/2006 6:00:28 PM PDT by tomzz
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To: tomzz
She's said to have an IQ in the area of about a hundred.

That too is way more than one needs. Unless one is a gorilla. :)

18 posted on 08/24/2006 6:16:06 PM PDT by Graymatter
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To: blam
It was a dark and stormy night, and in a cave in what is now southern France, Neanderthals were singing, dancing and tapping on stalagmites with their fingernails to pass the time.

Can't be worse than most of the hypersexual crap that passes for music nowadays. We evolved from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, but a certain element of our population seems to want to devolve to Homo priapism.

19 posted on 08/24/2006 6:21:42 PM PDT by dirtboy (This tagline has been photoshopped)
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To: RightWhale

You are right, music is easier to remember. It makes me think about the ABC’s. I can recite the ABC’s without singing the song I learned as a child but I still hear it even as I “say” the letters.

I cannot recite the lyrics of the Star Bangled Banner but I can sing it, albeit off key :).

And speech has tonality, without it it’s flat and monotone and emotionless. Think of the early generation of computer generated speech, you can understand the words spoken but it certainly doesn’t sound human. Language without inflection, no matter how rudimentary, doesn’t convey anything but cold fact and even then it looses meaning in translation.

Isn’t music in some ways just an extension and exaggeration of speech?


20 posted on 08/24/2006 9:29:19 PM PDT by Caramelgal (It is late, had a long day, too tired to come up with a clever tag line, will try harder next time,)
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