The Singing Neanderthals :The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body
The Singing Neanderthals :The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body
paperback
Published:
2 March, 2006
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Description
A fascinating and incisive examination of our language instinct from award-winning science writer Steven Mithen.
Along with the concepts of consciousness and intelligence, our capacity for language sits right at the core of what makes us human. But while the evolutionary origins of language have provoked speculation and impassioned debate, music has been neglected if not ignored. Like language it is a universal feature of human culture, one that is a permanent fixture in our daily lives.
In THE SINGING NEANDERTHALS, Steven Mithen redresses the balance, drawing on a huge range of sources, from neurological case studies through child psychology and the communication systems of non-human primates to the latest paleoarchaeological evidence.
The result is a fascinating and provocative work and a succinct riposte to those, like Steven Pinker, who have dismissed music as a functionless and unimportant evolutionary byproduct.
More Details
| Type | Book |
|---|---|
| ISBN13 | 9780753820513 |
| ISBN10 | 075382051X |
| Number Of Pages | 384 |
| Item Weight | 359 g |
| Product Dimensions | 134 x 212 x 30 mm |
| Publisher / Reseller | Orion Publishing Co |
| Format | paperback |
Media Reviews
An interesting attempt to probe the long-term history of feeling as well as of thought... [This] book is intelligent, important and clear. Anyone who likes to ask broad questions about intelligence, religion and experience, as well as anyone interested in long-term human history, will be able to read and argue with [this] book with enjoyment and profit. * THES (3/3/06) *
There is much illuminating and thought-provoking material. -- Ross Leckie * THE TIMES *
Wonderfully evocative... a highly original view of our musical origins. * GUARDIAN (1/4/06) *
GoodReads Reviews
Author's Bio
Steven Mithen is Professor of Early Prehistory and Head of the School of Human and Environmental Sciences at the University of Reading.