Evolutionary origins of music. Classical and recent hypotheses

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to review recent hypotheses on the evolutionary origins of music in Homo sapiens, taking into account the most influential traditional hypotheses. To date, theories derived from evolution have focused primarily on the importance that music carries in solving detailed adaptive problems. The three most influential theoretical concepts have described the evolution of human music in terms of 1) sexual selection, 2) the formation of social bonds, or treated it 3) as a byproduct. According to recent proposals, traditional hypotheses are flawed or insufficient in fully explaining the complexity of music in Homo sapiens. This paper will critically discuss three traditional hypotheses of music evolution (music as an effect of sexual selection, a mechanism of social bonding, and a byproduct), as well as and two recent concepts of music evolution - music as a credible signal and Music and Social Bonding (MSB) hypothesis.

Evolution of Artistic and Athletic Propensities: Testing of Intersexual Selection and Intrasexual Competition

“…Others argue for the existence of a set of ancestral psychological capacities that are specialized in processing artistic information (e.g., Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1989 ; Zahavi and Zahavi, 1999 ; Martindale et al, 2007 ; Dutton, 2009 ; Davies, 2012 ; Sütterlin et al, 2014 ; Hogh-Olesen, 2018 ; Richards, 2019 ; Varella, 2021 ). The main proposed ancestral adaptive values are related to survival benefits (e.g., in-group cohesion, parental bonding, cognition and health improvement) and to reproductive advantages (e.g., mate selection, intrasexual competition) ( Dissanayake, 2008 ; Varella et al, 2010 , 2011 , 2017 ; Menninghaus, 2019 ; De Tiège et al, 2021 ; Kalinowski et al, 2021 ). The different evolutionary perspectives are not mutually exclusive ( Menninghaus, 2019 ), so dismissing one perspective does not necessarily support another ( Varella et al, 2017 ).…”

A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review Regarding Musical Universality in Academic Literature.

“…Although fewer in studies are included, the effects of cultural musicality in these experiments were uniformly found to have a positive effect, and, in comparison with the innate musicality meta-analysis, the between-heterogeneity for this analysis (𝐼𝐼 2 = 60%) demonstrates greater confidence in the pooled effect for these particular measures. The greater pooled effect (SMD = .89±.42) suggests much stronger correlation between predictors of cultural musicality and musical interpretation outcomes, which contradicts previously understood theories in empirical disciplines that posit a biological explanation for musical cognition (Kalinowski et al, 2021). Therefore, even in empirical disciplines, evidence that demonstrates the cultural components of musical perception is stronger than evidence that demonstrates innate perceptions.…”

“…Similarly, a separate academic review by Kalinowski et al ( 2021) found that the three major hypothesis of music's evolutionary origins-as either part of "1) sexual selection, 2) the formation of social bonds, or … 3) a byproduct"-do not fully explain the full complexity of music as it exists currently. Even so, both of these reviews demonstrate the optimism exhibited in the fields of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science in order to provide some explanation as to how humans have evolved to conceive music, even going so far as to encourage further collection of cognitive, neurological, and statistical data as well as the synthesis of various analytical models in pursuit of a clearer answer to these hypotheses (Justus & Hustler, 2005;Kalinowski et al, 2021).…”

“…Ethnographers realize the philosophic discrepancy between empirical sciences and their own work, yet it is these scholars that indicate the need for a more unified theory of music in social, biological, and evolutionary contexts as encouraged by Morrison & Demorest (2009) and Kalinowski et al (2021). It is not that each field is examining two completely different phenomena but that each is inquiring within the bounds of an extraordinarily limited theory of music.…”

“…For example, in an academic review of music's position in evolutionary psychology, experimental psychologists Justus & Hustler (2005) found that the "innate constraint[s] and domain specificity" are not sufficiently documented to substantiate this assumption that music was contrived as an adaption to any particular pressure, meaning that current research only demonstrates that any number of factors could have influenced the establishment of music in the human psyche (including entirely socio-cultural factors).Similarly, a separate academic review by Kalinowski et al ( 2021) found that the three major hypothesis of music's evolutionary origins-as either part of "1) sexual selection, 2) the formation of social bonds, or … 3) a byproduct"-do not fully explain the full complexity of music as it exists currently. Even so, both of these reviews demonstrate the optimism exhibited in the fields of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science in order to provide some explanation as to how humans have evolved to conceive music, even going so far as to encourage further collection of cognitive, neurological, and statistical data as well as the synthesis of various analytical models in pursuit of a clearer answer to these hypotheses (Justus & Hustler, 2005;Kalinowski et al, 2021).However, there is a general refutation expressed by numerous ethnomusicologists at the idea of music's universality in numerous respects. For example, George List (1971), a 20th century scholar and highly regarded authority in ethnomusicology, argues that music cannot be universally defined, as cross-cultural comparative studies have not empirically demonstrated that music communicates anything more than simplistic notions of 'happiness' or 'sadness' when shown to naive audiences, which can hardly reflect a 'universal language' of humanity.…”