Podlipniak Piotr
Department of Musicology, Adam Mickiewicz University, ul. Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego7, Poznań, Poland.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2025 Aug;1550(1):206-226. doi: 10.1111/nyas.70000. Epub 2025 Jul 22.
Many species use conspicuous sound signaling as a defense strategy against conspecifics and heterospecifics. This has prompted some scholars to hypothesize that musical displays can serve as a defensive signaling mechanism. It has been suggested that to achieve this function, hominins may have used synchronized acoustic signals, which then became the roots of musical rhythm. Another important component of music-pitch-has been proposed to result either from other selective pressures or as a byproduct of certain biological constraints. This paper aims to add to the idea of the defensive function of music, by looking at the role of pitch matching in the long-distance deterrence of conspecifics between singing hominins. Since the production and recognition of musical pitch depend on many abilities, their evolution in the context of this possible defensive function is discussed. In particular, the emergence and role of culturally variable musical pitch elements as hallmarks of group identity are examined when considering selective pressures that occurred from increasing hominin social complexity. In contrast to current monofunctional explanations, this proposal highlights a possible reinforcement between other adaptive functions of musical pitch related to the hominin social niche, which ultimately created a synergistic loop and accelerated the evolution of musicality.
许多物种将引人注目的声音信号作为抵御同种和异种生物的防御策略。这促使一些学者推测，音乐展示可以作为一种防御信号机制。有人认为，为了实现这一功能，原始人类可能使用了同步声学信号，这些信号随后成为了音乐节奏的根源。音乐的另一个重要组成部分——音高，有人提出它要么源于其他选择压力，要么是某些生物限制的副产品。本文旨在通过研究音高匹配在歌唱原始人类同种生物的远距离威慑中的作用，来补充音乐具有防御功能这一观点。由于音乐音高的产生和识别取决于多种能力，因此本文将讨论它们在这种可能的防御功能背景下的进化。特别是，当考虑到原始人类社会复杂性增加所产生的选择压力时，会研究文化可变的音乐音高元素作为群体身份标志的出现和作用。与当前的单功能解释不同，这一观点强调了与原始人类社会生态位相关的音乐音高的其他适应性功能之间可能存在的强化作用，这最终形成了一个协同循环并加速了音乐性的进化。
