Where Did Music Come From? Here Are the Leading Theories

Did humans evolve to sing and dance, or did we invent our musical pastimes? Scientists are still debating the origin of this universal behavior.
By Cody CottierJanuary 29, 2021 9:00 AM

Look anywhere and you’ll find music. Without a single exception, every culture produces some form of it. Like language, it’s a universal trait in our species, and over the millennia it has bloomed into a diverse and stunning global symphony. Yet its origin remains one of the great secrets of human history.

The oldest known instruments are 42,000-year-old bone flutes discovered in caves in Germany. Vocal music surely predates these, but the problem, according to University of Amsterdam musicologist Henkjan Honing, “is that music doesn’t fossilize and our brains don’t fossilize.” With little hard evidence, scientists still debate what evolutionary purpose music serves. And because its purpose is obscure enough to warrant debate, some skeptics question whether it serves any purpose at all.

Charles Darwin thought it did. In music, he found evidence for his lesser-known theory of sexual selection. Drawing a comparison with birdsong — which is partially a courtship tactic — he proposed in his 1871 book The Descent of Man that although our melodiousness doesn’t help us survive from day to day, it could have evolved “for the sake of charming the opposite sex.”

This view of music as a primitive love song is less fashionable today. (Though, as Keio University musicologist Patrick Savage jokes, it may find a compelling “poster child” in Jimi Hendrix and his many romantic liaisons.) But an array of new ideas has taken its place as psychologists, cognitive scientists, anthropologists and others continue to confront the mystery of music.

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