Evolution, Mind and Behaviour
Volume/Issue:
Volume 15: Issue 1
Music, dance, synchrony, and conformity: Dealing with non-cooperation in early hominin culture
Author:
D. Liebenberg Cape Peninsula University of Technology

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Pages:
17–27
Online Publication Date:
Dec 2017
Publication Date:
01 Dec 2017
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/2050.2017.0002
Keywords:
bonding; music; dance; synchrony; shared intentionality; nonconformist; collective violence; evolution of cognition
Open access

Using Robin Dunbar’s theories about hominin social bonding and the evolution of music, dance and religion, this article argues that a proto-ritualistic collective song and dance performance established conditions that were ideal for the evolution of fundamental elements of human cognition, such as shared intentionality, joint attention, and the ability to form a mental template. Furthermore, it is argued that this dance routine would have been an effective breeding ground for the development of a psychological regulatory system that could powerfully enforce cooperation by collectively targeting individuals who do not or cannot conform to the melody or the beat – i.e. misfits who do not achieve synchrony with the other members of the dance group. Thus a hominin society consisting of highly cooperative individuals possessing the cognitive skills of shared intentionality, joint attention, and the ability to form mental templates – i.e. a society with all the necessary skills for the development of a mimetic form of communication, followed much later by spoken language – comes into being.

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Evolution, Mind and Behaviour
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Evolution, Mind and Behaviour
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