An Archaeology of the Senses

Prehistoric Malta
Robin Skeates

Social Brain, Distributed Mind

Edited by Robin Dunbar, Clive Gamble,
and John Gowlett
British Academy
The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory
Why did Foragers become Farmers?
Graeme Barker
Also available in paperback
The Evolutionary Emergence of Language
Evidence and Inference
Edited by Rudolf Botha and Martin Everaert
Oxford Studies in the Evolution of Language
The Emergent Past
A Relational Realist Archaeology of Early
Bronze Age Mortuary Practices
Chris Fowler
Painted Caves
Palaeolithic Rock Art in Western Europe
Andrew J. Lawson

Music is possessed by all human cultures, and archaeological

evidence for musical activities pre-dates even the earliest known cave
art. Music has been the subject of keen investigation across a great diversity
of fields, from neuroscience and psychology to ethnography, archaeology,
and its own dedicated field, musicology. Despite the great contributions
that these studies have made towards understanding musical behaviours,
much remains mysterious about this ubiquitous human
phenomenonnot least, its origins.
In a ground-breaking study, this volume brings together evidence
from these fields, and more, in investigating the evolutionary origins of
our musical abilities, the nature of music, and the earliest archaeological
evidence for musical activities amongst our ancestors. Seeking to understand
the true relationship between our unique musical capabilities and the
development of the remarkable social, emotional, and communicative
abilities of our species, it will be essential reading for anyone interested
in music and human physical and cultural evolution.

=<
Jacket image showing working reproductions of actual prehistoric instruments: swan bone
models of discoveries from Isturitz and Hohlefels, a model of the La Roche bullroarer
in antler, a phalangeal whistle and a bone rasp. It also features a reed pipe and rattles
made from willow, some of many types of instrument widely used in traditional
societies but unlikely to be preserved archaeologically. The swan bone was provided
by The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Slimbridge, for research purposes;
the instruments and image were made by Dr Simon Wyatt.

Image and Audience

Rethinking Prehistoric Art
Richard Bradley

The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology

Edited by Barry Cunliffe, Chris Gosden,
and Rosemary A. Joyce
Oxford Handbooks in Archaeology

ISBN 978-0-19-923408-0

1
9 780199 234080

Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction

Paul Bahn
Very Short Introductions

the Prehistory of Music

Social Relations in Later Prehistory

Wessex in the First Millennium bc
Niall Sharples

the Prehistory
of Music
Human Evolution, Archaeology, & the Origins of Musicality

i a i n mor ley

Author photograph by Sacha Jones.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

mor ley

ALSO PUBLISHED BY

Iain Morley is Lecturer in Palaeoanthropology

and Human Sciences at the University of
Oxford, and a Fellow of St. Hughs College.
After initially studying psychology he turned
to prehistoric archaeology and the evolution
of human cognition, completing his PhD at
Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He has worked as a
field archaeologist at prehistoric and classical
sites in Britain, continental Europe, and
North Africa, and has contributed regularly
to programmes for television and radio. He is
a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a
Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

ALSO PUBLISHED BY

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Music, Language, and Human Evolution
Edited by Nicholas Bannan
Missing Links
In Search of Human Origins
John Reader
Culture Evolves
Edited by Andrew Whiten, Robert A. Hinde,
Christopher B. Stringer, and Kevin N. Laland
Human Evolution
Trails from the Past
Camilo J. Cela-Conde and Francisco J. Ayala