The Singing Neanderthals Review
The Singing Neanderthals by Steven Mithen argues that music is ancient, adaptive, and central to human evolution. He proposes a prelinguistic communication system that was holistic, manipulative, multi-modal, musical, and mimetic: a platform from which language later specialized.
Overview
Mithen synthesizes archaeology, primate behavior, neuroscience, and developmental studies. He examines rhythm, pitch, and movement as social coordination tools in hunting, caregiving, and ritual, then connects vocal control and auditory processing to brain evolution.
Summary
Evidence threads: infant-directed song for bonding; group rhythm for cohesion; vocal emotion as signal; mirror systems and entrainment for cooperation. The “hmmmmm” hypothesis frames a proto-communication that conveyed affect and intent before compositional syntax. Language and music diverge but share neural and anatomical roots.
Authors
Steven Mithen is an archaeologist known for cross-disciplinary arguments. He writes clearly and speculates with stated caveats.
Key Themes
Music as social glue; affect first, syntax later; coevolution of brain, voice, and culture; continuity with animal calls and human infant behavior.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths: broad evidence base, a testable framework, and compelling accounts of bonding and coordination. Weaknesses: inferential gaps from sparse archaeological traces and debates over neural specificity. Treat as a strong synthesis, open to revision.
Target Audience
Readers in cognitive science, archaeology, music cognition, and anyone curious about why music feels necessary.
Favorite Ideas
Infant-directed song as evolutionary technology; group entrainment as cooperation engine; proto-communication that is sung and gestured before it is spoken.
Takeaways
Music is not cultural ornament. It is an evolved medium for bonding and coordination that set the stage for language and complex society.
