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Letter

Sound-induced motion in chimpanzees does not imply shared ancestry for music or dance

Mila Bertolo, View ORCID ProfileManvir Singh, and View ORCID ProfileSamuel A. Mehr
PNAS January 12, 2021 118 (2) e2015664118; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2015664118
Mila Bertolo
aDepartment of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138;
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  • For correspondence: sam@wjh.harvard.edu mila_bertolo@g.harvard.edu
Manvir Singh
bDepartment of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138;
cInstitute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST), 31080 Toulouse Cedex 6, France;
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Samuel A. Mehr
aDepartment of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138;
dData Science Initiative, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138;
eSchool of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 6012, New Zealand
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  • For correspondence: sam@wjh.harvard.edu mila_bertolo@g.harvard.edu

This Letter has a Reply and related content. Please see:

  • Rhythmic swaying induced by sound in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) - December 23, 2019
  • Reply to Bertolo et al.: Rhythmic swaying in chimpanzees has implications for understanding the biological roots of music and dance - December 22, 2020
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Hattori and Tomonaga (1) report that seven captive chimpanzees moved in response to piano sounds, more so than in silence. On this basis, they argue, “some biological foundation for dancing existed in the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees ∼6 million years ago.”

Music's universality suggests it has deep phylogenetic roots (2). Understanding music-like behavior in nonhuman animals is therefore valuable for understanding the evolution of music (3). But such a claim of shared ancestry for music or dance is unjustified, for three reasons.

First, the effects were heterogenous across a small sample (1). The most active chimpanzee (Akira) moved more than 50 times longer than the least active chimpanzee. Such dramatic variability …

↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: sam{at}wjh.harvard.edu or mila_bertolo{at}g.harvard.edu.

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Sound-induced motion in chimpanzees does not imply shared ancestry for music or dance
Mila Bertolo, Manvir Singh, Samuel A. Mehr
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jan 2021, 118 (2) e2015664118; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2015664118

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Sound-induced motion in chimpanzees does not imply shared ancestry for music or dance
Mila Bertolo, Manvir Singh, Samuel A. Mehr
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jan 2021, 118 (2) e2015664118; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2015664118
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