Regardless of whether we yodel, sing rock ballads or perform ecstatic jazz improvisations – it all says something about where we’re from. | Photo: Keystone/Jean-Christophe Bott

Researchers have been trying for decades to find out why we humans are so different from each other. In hopes of getting closer to an answer, they’ve been comparing various aspects of culture whose development has gone hand in hand with human development. Now a research group has succeeded in proving that music follows its own developmental paths.

An international, multidisciplinary team including researchers from the University of Zurich has drawn on three datasets comprising information from over 120 societies with just under 1,000 songs, almost 1,300 genetic profiles and a good 120 languages. Comparing this data has enabled them to draw conclusions about how these three aspects fit into the developmental history of humankind. Their results are surprising: it transpires that musical traditions develop independently of population history and of different language regions.

There is still no definitive explanation as to why this is the case. Chiara Barbieri is an evolutionary biologist who suspects that it’s down to the way we use songs: “Songs, and music in general, are passed on within societies, but this transfer is not hereditary as is the case with our genes. Instead, it’s characterised by chance and social factors”. For example, songs can convey status and for this reason are not used equally by all societal groups. What’s more, we are always in contact with other cultures, which leads to musical variations being exchanged. Language is also partly influenced by societal issues, but not by the exact same factors as music.

Thanks to this study, a global picture of the evolution of music is being drawn up for the first time. Previous studies have focussed on specific regions, which is why it was impossible to make any generalised statements. The work of these researchers is making a further contribution to solving the mystery of human diversity and the complex processes that lie behind it.

Passmore et al.: Global musical diversity is largely independent of linguistic and genetic histories. Nature Communications (2024)