The (co)evolution of language and music under human self-domestication

Abstract

Together with language, music is perhaps our most distinctive behavioral trait. As for language, different hypotheses have been proposed to explain why only humans perform music and how this ability might have evolved in the species. In this paper, we advance a new model of music evolution that builds on the self-domestication view of human evolution, according to which the human phenotype is, at least in part, the outcome of a process similar to mammal domestication, triggered by a reduction in reactive aggression responses resulting from environmental changes. In the paper, we specifically argue that self-domestication can account for some of the cognitive changes, and particularly for the behaviors conducive for the complexification of music through a cultural mechanism. We hypothesize 4 stages in the evolution of music under self-domestication forces: collective proto-music, private timbre-oriented music, small group pitch-oriented music, and finally, collective tonally-organized music. This line of development parallels what has been hypothesized for languages. It encompasses the diversity of music types and genres described worldwide. Overall, music diversity emerges in a gradual fashion under the effects of our enhanced abilities for cultural niche construction, as shaped by the progressive decrease in reactive (i.e., impulsive, triggered by fear or anger) aggression and the increase in proactive (i.e., premeditated, goal-directed) aggression.

Human musical capacity and products should have been induced by the hominin‐specific combination of several biosocial features: A three‐phase scheme on socio‐ecological, cognitive, and cultural evolution

“…The four principal scenarios are as follows: music evolved from language, language evolved from music, music and language have been independent of each other, and music and language branched from their common precursors. 8,10,23,112 We predict that a common ancestor between music and language is most plausible, owing to similarities between current music and language, while these are quite specialized respectively as well. 8,10,23,113 Therefore, the functions and mechanisms of each branch must be explained both together and separately.…”

A philosophical analysis of the emergence of language

“…Many other examples can be found in the modern biolinguistic literature, particularly about how language evolved. One case is the claim that language evolved in connection to other non‐linguistic adaptations such as adoption of a bipedal gate, developing control over phonation, increased brain size, the formation of social support for child rearing and so forth (Benítez‐Burraco & Nikolsky, 2023; MacWhinney, 2002). Another example, related to this, is the claim that there are no qualitative systematic differences between the human brain that shows linguistic abilities, and the brains of other primates that lacks any such abilities (Deacon, 2005; Lecours et al, 1983), so that language evolution, like the evolution of many other human‐specific abilities, can be mostly viewed as the outcome of the kludge process that put into contact, and perhaps optimised, previously evolved brain mechanisms (see Marcus, 2008), actually, in the line of Chomsky's MP.…”