Can the origins of human music be seen in chimps drumming? Study provides new insights
Chimpanzees don’t just drum with distinct rhythms but have their own signature styles, a new study of apes in East and West Africa finds
Out west, they groove with fast, evenly spaced beats. In the east, it is more free-form and fluid.
Like humans, chimpanzees drum with distinct rhythms – and two subspecies living on opposite sides of Africa have their own signature styles, according to a study published in the scientific journal Current Biology.
The idea that ape drumming might hold clues to the origins of human musicality has long fascinated scientists, but collecting enough clean data amid the cacophony of the jungle had, until now, proven elusive.
“Finally we’ve been able to quantify that chimps drum rhythmically – they don’t just randomly drum,” said the study’s lead author, Vesta Eleuteri, of the University of Vienna in Austria.
The findings lend fresh weight to the theory that the raw ingredients of human music were present before our evolutionary split from chimpanzees 6 million years ago.