A fascinating and incisive examination of our language instinct from award-winning science writer Steven Mithen.

Along with the concepts of consciousness and intelligence, our capacity for language sits right at the core of what makes us human. But while the evolutionary origins of language have provoked speculation and impassioned debate, music has been neglected if not ignored. Like language it is a universal feature of human culture, one that is a permanent fixture in our daily lives.

In THE SINGING NEANDERTHALS, Steven Mithen redresses the balance, drawing on a huge range of sources, from neurological case studies through child psychology and the communication systems of non-human primates to the latest paleoarchaeological evidence.

The result is a fascinating and provocative work and a succinct riposte to those, like Steven Pinker, who have dismissed music as a functionless and unimportant evolutionary byproduct.

• We started tracking this book on November 9, 2017.
• This book was £5.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 10 times in the past 2,908 days.
• The current price of this book is £2.99 last checked 3 hours ago.
• The lowest price to date was £2.99 last reached on October 25, 2025.
• This book has been £2.99 4 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was £5.99 last reached on August 7, 2025.
• This book has been £5.99 3 times since we started tracking it.
• This book is currently at its lowest price since we started tracking it.

• Education & ReferenceWords, Language & GrammarLinguistics

• Publication Date: December 30, 2011
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 382 Pages
• File Size: 27 KB