Les origines biologiques de la musique
Music is a universal and ubiquitous human behaviour, but it is still largely ignored by anthropology. While music is well characterised at proximate levels of explanation, the question of their evolutionary origins remains relatively unexplored. Nevertheless, any attempts to explain this phenomena needs to investigate its potential adaptive significance and phylogeny This project consists of an attempt to define music in terms of universals, of a interspecific comparison of the phenomena and of a summary of the phylogenetic history of musical behaviour as well as an analysis of two theories on origins of music (Miller, 2000 ; Mithen, 2006). Their predictions will be confronted to empirical data from a large array of disciplines to evaluate their scientific value. The analysis of the data available allows to produce an inventory of cognitive, structural, emotional, functional and symbolic music universals and to identify certain biological bases of the phenomena. Several evolutionist mechanisms, including natural selection, sexual selection, group selection and kin selection, have been employed by several authors to explain the emergence of music. It seems that music played an important role in the parent-infant relationship throughout evolution, as well as in social cohesion, coordination of social activities and formation of group identity. Regarding the two models analysed in this research, their comparison allows us to conclude that they are mutually exclusive and only discuss part of the musical invariants. In the end, an evolutionary framework that synthesizes and reconciles these hypotheses is proposed.
Music Evolution Anthropology