Mithen draws evidence from neurology, paleontology, cross-cultural studies in language development in infants, and archaeology to argue for the evolution of human language and community from our ancestors’ ability to make primordial melody and gesture. I suspect the title is not his. Despite the title, he’s not writing about Neanderthals. Mithen’s real subject is music’s importance to the formation of primal community. From the primal communication that makes possible primal human community and early human’s collaborating systematically for survival. In Mithen’s evolutionary theory of language, human language comes from music, sentences from melodies, and finally words emerge from sentences. His extended argument is compelling, but with its breadth of data from different disciplines, also complex. For me this book demanded a slow, patient reading. It’s from Mithen’s evidence that I say that feeling is the vessel for articulated meaning.
The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body , Steven Mithen, Harvard University Press, 2007
