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Why Sing We?

Music gives biologists fits. Its ubiquity in human cultures, and strong evidence that the brain comes preloaded with musical circuits, suggest that music is as much a product of human evolution as, say, thumbs. But that raises the question of what music is for. Back in 1871, Darwin speculated that human music, like bird songs, attracts mates. Or, as he put it, prelinguistic human ancestors tried “to charm each other with musical notes and rhythm.”

But more recent work by scientists suggests that music might have played a much different role than this — bonding groups of early humans together in their social networks, and maybe even laying down the foundations for language capacity. Musical “grammar” may even be the root of linguistic grammar structures. Read more at the link above.

Via boingboing.

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