Volume 53, Number 7 · April 27, 2006
Beyond Words
By William H. McNeill
The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body
by Steven Mithen
Harvard University Press, 374 pp., $25.95
Steven Mithen, professor of early prehistory at Reading University in England, begins his preface by writing that 'the propensity to make music is the most mysterious, wonderful and neglected feature of humankind.' Since, until the advent of recordings, most music-making and all singing left no tangible trace behind, that neglect is not really surprising. How can anyone know, or plausibly surmise, what our human and pre-human ancestors did in the way of music-making?
Review, 4335 words
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