2009/09/01 by Edward H. Hagen, Peter Hammerstein · 3 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Psychology · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior #Primate Behavior and Ecology #Animal Behavior and Reproduction
paper · doi:10.1177/1029864909013002131
openalex publication_date 2009/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/16
Group defence of territories is found in many gregarious mammalian carnivores, including lions, canids, and hyenas. In these taxa, group members often mark territory boundaries and direct aggressive behaviour towards alien conspecifics found within the territory (Boydston et al., 2001). Middle Pleistocene hominids such as Neanderthals occupied an ecological niche similar to such large carnivores (Stiner, 2002), and so could be expected to share with them a suite of behavioural traits. Complex, coordinated vocalizations that function, at least in part, to advertise the group defence of a territory is one behavioural trait exhibited by several social carnivores, as well as many other gregarious animals, including primates. Hagen and Bryant (2003) proposed that the evolution of human music and dance was rooted in such coordinated auditory and visual territorial advertisements, an hypothesis we develop and expand upon here. Human proto-music, in essence, might have been functionally analogous to the howling of wolves.