We Eukaryotes

Part 11 - Arts

Above: New Zealand Maori war dance.

Evolution increase the probability of survival by producing Endorphin in the brains of animals to encourage agility and sexual activity.  Hominids' delight with music, rhythm and movement probably derived from the pleasure of walking and running and swing from tree branches.  A happy animal was much more likely to raise offsprings than a sad one.

Individuals who were less interested in exercise tended not to survive. They failed, to hunt well enough to obtain food, or to evade predators, or to survive border skirmishes. Less active people were also less attractive to the opposite sex. (Females have always been attracted to men who are good hunters or warriors and today they like men who are good dancers or otherwise physically active).

Dancing probably evolved in early primates as a form of social interaction that promoted cooperation essential for survival. It was an important part of religious rituals (rain dances during drought etc), celebrations (for crop harvests and weddings) and to prevent sickness and for entertainment long before the earliest civilizations. An innate sense of rhythm permits musicians, singers and dancers to coordinate their activity even without formal musical training.  Drumming or rhythmic shouting or singing was also an early practice in warfare as a way deter enemies and encourage warriors. (Riot police still drum on their shields with batons).

The 30,000-year-old Bhimbetka rock shelters paintings in India are the earliest record of dancing but many cultures had devised dances, long before this, often mimicking the movement of animals as a way of recording hunting incidents. The best-known surviving example of this are the Chinese traditional dragon dance and lion dance.

The first musical instrument was probably the human voice but hominids discovered other ways to make sounds. After percussion instruments the earliest may have been the whistle. A five-holed, bone flute, made from a vulture wing bone, found in Germany is thought to be about 35,000 years old.

Acheologist have found bone flutes made 9,000 years ago in Henan, China, and clay music instruments called Xun thought to be 7,000 years old in Xi'an.   And, Chinese records provide evidence of a well-developed musical culture about 3000 years ago.

The didgeridoo was developed by Aboriginal peoples of northern Australia at least 1,500 years ago, although some archeologist believe it might have been in use 40,000 years ago.

FOOT NOTE

Drumming synchronizes both halves of the brain and this coordination can increasing alpha brain wave activity thereby producing a calming and relaxing effect similar to meditation.  With practice, it provides an endorphin rush known as a drummer's (or runner's) high which promotes more cooperative behaviour and better health.  

Recent research shows that drumming can benefit patients with depression, post traumatic stress disorder, attention deficit disorder, strokes or Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease.   It can also increase pain thresholds by releasing enkephalins, the brains natural morphine-like painkillers and can help recovering addicts, prison inmates, emotionally disturbed teens, trauma patients, and the homeless.

The developing brains produced an unexpected need to depict life and abstract art with coloured pigment like carbon black, white chalk or red ochre (made from iron oxide) on the walls of caves.

In Sulawesi, Indonesia, Scientists recently discovered the oldest known cave wall art painting of real events.  Estimated to be at least 43,900 years old they depict pig hunting. They noted these were "the oldest pictorial record of storytelling and the earliest figurative artwork in the world". 

A recent study claimed an age of 64,000 years for the oldest examples of painted red hand stencils and simple geometric shapes in Spain. (Although these were dated using the uranium-thorium method that may prove inaccurate). These three, red symbols must have been made by Neanderthals rather than modern humans as they predate the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe by at least 20,000 years, but a recent report dated cave art in France as far back as 176 thousand years.

In some cases the subject of the painting may suggest its age. The reindeer depicted in the Spanish cave of Cueva de las Monedas, for example, means the drawings was made during the last Ice Age.

The practice of face and body painting and self adornment with bones and feather for ceremonies and warfare existed probably from long before recorded history down to the present. 

 After the Roman general Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 BCE, he reported that "All the Britons dye themselves with woad, which produces a blue colour, and makes their appearance in battle more terrible." Woad was a blue dye obtained from a member of the cabbage family.

When Captain James Cooke arrived in New Zealand in 1769, he met Maori warriors tattooed with fearsome facial designs (see above video).