Music exists almost every human culture on earth. The oldest discovered musical instruments date back over 40,000 years to the Stone Age.
In prehistoric times, music promoted tighter social bonding between group members. Singing and drumming together released chemicals like dopamine and endorphins, inducing positive emotions that strengthened social connections.
Early music likely aided communication too. Rhythmic drumbeats and calls organized the actions and movements of groups during hunts or battle. Singing while working made labor less boring. Mothers may have sung primitive tunes to children as an early form of emotional communication.
In all these ways, music increased survival chances in human evolution. Natural selection then embedded (嵌入) the capacity for music into our biology. Supporting this, scientists have discovered specific regions of the brain devoted to musical processing. Children have an inborn ability to detect musical patterns and different tonal pitches.
A.Music also strengthened defenses. |
B.Music can bring humans a lot of joy. |
C.Music also helped to win the battle. |
D.But scientists believe music itself could be much older than that. |
E.We connect with music now simply because we are born to do so. |
F.Even patients with severe dementia (痴呆) respond actively to their favorite childhood songs. |
G.This allowed groups to cooperate better in hunting, children-caring and protection against outside threats. |