The significance of the great ape heritage in the evolution of human rhythm in speech, music and dance
Sauciuc, Gabriela-Alina LU ; Persson, Tomas LU
; Hattori, Yuko
and Lameira, Adriano
(2025)
In Fascinating Life Sciences
- Abstract
- The significance of the great ape heritage to the evolution of human rhythmic competence — as manifested in speech, music and dance — has been greatly underestimated in both past and contemporary research. In this chapter we deconstruct received misconceptions about the rhythmic competence of the apes and defend the position that, contrary to the received view, the great apes likely constitute the most important model species for research on the evolution of human rhythmicity as manifested in speech, dance and music. To this end, we review data on a range of relevant aspects of great ape behaviour and cognition, including evidence of tool-assisted sound production, the production of rhythmic body movements (including rhythmic engagement... (More)
- The significance of the great ape heritage to the evolution of human rhythmic competence — as manifested in speech, music and dance — has been greatly underestimated in both past and contemporary research. In this chapter we deconstruct received misconceptions about the rhythmic competence of the apes and defend the position that, contrary to the received view, the great apes likely constitute the most important model species for research on the evolution of human rhythmicity as manifested in speech, dance and music. To this end, we review data on a range of relevant aspects of great ape behaviour and cognition, including evidence of tool-assisted sound production, the production of rhythmic body movements (including rhythmic engagement and rhythmic synchronisation) and rhythmic vocalisations, as well as discuss two cognitive mechanisms — relational processing and shared intentionality — that have been theorised to underlie rhythm perception and sensorimotor synchronisation in humans. For each of these aspects, we discuss their relevance to the evolution of human speech, and music and dance and highlight new avenues for future research. Understanding the evolution of these human communicative rhythms and disentangling classical evolutionary conundrums regarding the speech-music and the dance-music relationship hinge on understanding their genesis in the precursor traits of the Hominid family. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/70df241d-35b6-40e5-98d0-f42fb04e4b97
- author
- Sauciuc, Gabriela-Alina
LU
; Persson, Tomas
LU
; Hattori, Yuko
and Lameira, Adriano
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025
- type
- Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
- publication status
- in press
- subject
- keywords
- great apes, music, dance, speech, evolution, rhythm
- host publication
- Nature Beats : The What, How and Why of Animal Rhythmic Behavior - The What, How and Why of Animal Rhythmic Behavior
- series title
- Fascinating Life Sciences
- editor
- Sauciuc, Gabriela-Alina ; Lameira, Adriano R. and Persson, Tomas
- pages
- 18 pages
- publisher
- Springer
- project
- The evolution of musicality: synchronisation behaviours and rhythm perception in chimpanzees
- Where does human cooperation come from? The evolutionary origins of the ability to infer shared goals and motivations
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 70df241d-35b6-40e5-98d0-f42fb04e4b97
- date added to LUP
- 2025-08-22 06:22:35
- date last changed
- 2025-08-26 11:25:37
@inbook{70df241d-35b6-40e5-98d0-f42fb04e4b97,
abstract = {{The significance of the great ape heritage to the evolution of human rhythmic competence — as manifested in speech, music and dance — has been greatly underestimated in both past and contemporary research. In this chapter we deconstruct received misconceptions about the rhythmic competence of the apes and defend the position that, contrary to the received view, the great apes likely constitute the most important model species for research on the evolution of human rhythmicity as manifested in speech, dance and music. To this end, we review data on a range of relevant aspects of great ape behaviour and cognition, including evidence of tool-assisted sound production, the production of rhythmic body movements (including rhythmic engagement and rhythmic synchronisation) and rhythmic vocalisations, as well as discuss two cognitive mechanisms — relational processing and shared intentionality — that have been theorised to underlie rhythm perception and sensorimotor synchronisation in humans. For each of these aspects, we discuss their relevance to the evolution of human speech, and music and dance and highlight new avenues for future research. Understanding the evolution of these human communicative rhythms and disentangling classical evolutionary conundrums regarding the speech-music and the dance-music relationship hinge on understanding their genesis in the precursor traits of the Hominid family.}},
author = {{Sauciuc, Gabriela-Alina and Persson, Tomas and Hattori, Yuko and Lameira, Adriano}},
booktitle = {{Nature Beats : The What, How and Why of Animal Rhythmic Behavior}},
editor = {{Sauciuc, Gabriela-Alina and Lameira, Adriano R. and Persson, Tomas}},
keywords = {{great apes; music; dance; speech; evolution; rhythm}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{Springer}},
series = {{Fascinating Life Sciences}},
title = {{The significance of the great ape heritage in the evolution of human rhythm in speech, music and dance}},
year = {{2025}},
}