A million years of music
Subtitle: the emergence of human modernity
By: Gary Tomlinson
Publisher: Zone Books
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 362
ISBN-13: 9781935408659
Subjects: Origin; Music; Musicology; Coevolution; History and criticism; Human evolution; Music archaeology
Description: What is the origin of music? In the last few decades this centuries-old puzzle has been reinvigorated by new archaeological evidence and developments in the fields of cognitive science, linguistics, and evolutionary theory. In this path-breaking book, renowned musicologist Gary Tomlinson draws from these areas to construct a new narrative for the emergence of human music. Starting at a period of human prehistory long before Homo sapiens or music existed, Tomlinson describes the incremental attainments that, by changing the communication and society of prehuman species, laid the foundation for musical behaviors in more recent times. He traces in Neandertals and early sapiens the accumulation and development of these capacities, and he details their coalescence into modern musical behavior across the last hundred millennia. But 'A Million Years of Music' is not about music alone. Tomlinson builds a model of human evolution that revises our understanding of the interaction of biology and culture across evolutionary time-scales, challenging and enriching current models of our deep history.0As he tells his story, he draws in other emerging human traits: language, symbolism, a metaphysical imagination and the ritual it gives rise to, complex social structure, and the use of advanced technologies. Tomlinson's model of evolution allows him to account for much of what makes us a unique species in the world today and provides a new way of understanding the appearance of humanity in its modern form.
Notes: "Music's role in the development of the human capacity for abstract thinking is persuasively traced through an original and virtuosic narrative. To read this book is to be astonished by the relevance of archaeology and coevolution for thinking through some of the most central questions for music and the humanities in the twenty-first century"--Book jacket flap review.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Preface. Concepts, models , machines; title: Some first principles; title: 1,000,000 years ago : Acheulean performances; title: 500,000 years ago : lower Paleolithic voices; title: 250,000 years ago : Neandertal digitalization; title: 100,000 years ago : symbolic et non; title: 100,000-20,000 years ago, I : Homo sapiens and the falling out of modern culture; title: 100,000-20,000 years ago, II : musicking; title: Afterward [sic]; title: Evolution, emergence, and history : a final note.