frontiersin | The functions of dance and music in human evolution are a mystery.
Current research on the evolution of music has mainly focused on its
melodic attribute which would have evolved alongside (proto-)language.
Instead, we propose an alternative conceptual framework which focuses on
the co-evolution of rhythm and dance (R&D) as intertwined aspects
of a multimodal phenomenon characterized by the unity of action and
perception. Reviewing the current literature from this viewpoint we
propose the hypothesis that R&D have co-evolved long before other
musical attributes and (proto-)language. Our view is supported by
increasing experimental evidence particularly in infants and children:
beat is perceived and anticipated already by newborns and rhythm
perception depends on body movement. Infants and toddlers spontaneously
move to a rhythm irrespective of their cultural background. The impulse
to dance may have been prepared by the susceptibility of infants to be
soothed by rocking. Conceivable evolutionary functions of R&D
include sexual attraction and transmission of mating signals. Social
functions include bonding, synchronization of many individuals,
appeasement of hostile individuals, and pre- and extra-verbal
communication enabling embodied individual and collective memorizing. In
many cultures R&D are used for entering trance, a base for
shamanism and early religions. Individual benefits of R&D include
improvement of body coordination, as well as painkilling,
anti-depressive, and anti-boredom effects. Rhythm most likely paved the
way for human speech as supported by studies confirming the overlaps
between cognitive and neural resources recruited for language and
rhythm. In addition, dance encompasses visual and gestural
communication. In future studies attention should be paid to which
attribute of music is focused on and that the close mutual relation
between R&D is taken into account. The possible evolutionary
functions of dance deserve more attention.
