Sunday, January 24, 2010

296. Aftermath 11: The Later Migrations

The scenario I've presented in the last few posts is based on an attempt to co-ordinate Stephen Oppenheimer's interpretation of the genetic evidence, including his Toba bottleneck theory, with what I've learned of the musical evidence, and what I am learning about the overall ethnographic picture. I call it an exploration because as I write I am considering other possibilities, exploring the various options for evaluating and interpreting each, and measuring all this against the original hypothesis.

So what has been learned from the exploration so far, and what other options might we consider as we attempt to relate various possibilities to the evidence? And I suppose the answer would be that the possibilities that emerge depend to a large extent on the sort of problems that come to mind. If you see no problem with a straightforward functionalist/diffusionist explanation for the cultural, morphological and genetic similarities and differences we now see in the world around us, and are content to accept independent invention as the best explanation for all the many widespread but isolated similarities not easily attributable to diffusion, then there is no problem with the most straightforward Out of Africa scenario: a small group of humans migrated from Africa to Asia; their descendants expanded along the southern coast of that continent, settling at first in India, where they quickly expanded throughout all of South Asia, with some continuing on to Southeast Asia and eventually migrating from there to East Asia, Siberia and Central Asia, with one or more of the Western colonies branching out to Europe at some point.

The many differences we now see in the world around us would therefore be due to the various adaptations people made to the different environments in which they found themselves; and the similarities would be due to the ways in which certain cultural elements diffused over time from one group to another -- or else to the workings of "convergent evolution," where by virtue of some inborn, universal process that can't really be explained different groups in different places find themselves evolving in a similar direction.

This is one way of thinking about the Out of Africa model, and about anthropology generally, and if one is not overly critical it might seem the most likely and/or reasonable scenario. Whatever problems it might encounter can be attributed to our lack of detailed information regarding exactly how certain features get diffused from one group to another to facilitate change, or how certain practices can be explained as cost-effective adaptations to environmental pressures, or how various encounters and interactions among various neighboring groups can produce, via some sort of genetic and/or cultural "drift," large geographical regions that differ from one another, morphologically, genetically and culturally. This all fits quite nicely with anthropology as currently practiced, where almost all the effort is concentrated on sifting through the myriad details required to explain all the many mini-problems that will invariably emerge from such a vaguely defined model.

This very "reasonable" approach to human evolution breaks down when we see certain problems that become evident only when we do something very few anthropologists of today seem willing to do: carefully and critically examine the patterns that emerge when we consider the large-scale distribution of cultural practices worldwide. The current mainstream approach is a bit like the old Ptolemaic theory of the universe, where the Earth was at the center and all the heavenly bodies revolved around it according to "epicycles" that could only be determined through painstaking and detailed observation and calculation, not at all unlike the laborious efforts of all the armies of anthropologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, etc. seeking to make sense of the human world by either counting and classifying every single stone, bone and sherd or interviewing every "native" in sight.

What convinced me that there is something very wrong with this picture was my discovery, thanks to Alan Lomax, of the remarkably consistent large-scale patterns we become aware of as we systematically study the various musical practices of traditional cultures on a worldwide basis. And once that door is opened, then a magnificent socio-cultural vista becomes discernible, rich with many other possibilities -- and problems.

So. To respond to some comments posted here, accusing me of failing to consider alternatives to the hypothesis I've been exploring, my answer is that I have in fact considered the alternative described above, which is in fact the mainstream interpretation of human evolution generally accepted, in one form or other, by almost all anthropologists, and have been forced to reject it, precisely because it fails to account for certain key pieces of evidence that become apparent only when considering the big picture.

What does this big picture tell us? The answers to that question can be found all over this blog, so there is no need for me to go into all that all over again. But the chief thing on my mind when considering the problem of the later migrations, the key piece of evidence that hits me especially hard as a musicologist, has to do with the distribution of a particular, highly distinctive, musical style, and its various substyles -- namely, what Lomax once called "elaborate style," a type of solo singing characterized by elaborate embellishment; wordiness; complex, "through-composed" forms, often built around various combinations of "mosaic" elements; narrow intervals; frequent use of microtones and other types of vocal nuance; improvisation; tense, constricted vocal timbre; precise enunciation of consonants; accompanied by instruments playing variants of the same melodic line in a manner technically called "heterophony." This is a style of music-making commonly found throughout Asia, from the Middle East (including North Africa) to India to East Asia, Southeast Asia, Island Southeast Asia, and, in a somewhat less extreme form, in Central Asia as well.

As I see it, first of all, it's all but impossible to account for such a style on the basis of a gradual evolution from P/B or any other typically African type of music making. So, unless we are willing to accept the multiregional model, which goes against just about all the genetic evidence, we are, as far as I can see, forced to accept that this is a style that could only have emerged as the result of some sudden, and indeed radical, change. And secondly, the extremely wide distribution of the style, not only among the "high cultures" of Asia and North Africa, but also in so much of the "folk" and even indigenous music as well, combined with the almost total absence of any form of vocal polyphony anywhere in the whole of Asia (with the exception of the many widely scattered, marginalized and isolated groups I've already mentioned), we are drawn almost inevitably to the conclusion that both the absence of polyphony and the presence of this totally different musical style must be due to some dramatic event that could have had such widespread consequences only if it had occurred somewhere in Asia, at some very early period of human history.

[Added 9:54 PM: Sorry, but I forgot to consider Asiatic Russia, which does indeed have some remarkable polyphonic vocal traditions, though Russian folk polyphony seems more closely related to somewhat similar traditions in Europe and also Georgia (which is itself on the cusp between Europe and Asia) than to anything elsewhere in Asia. While true Russian folk polyphony is widespread, both in Europe and Asia, it appears to also be a marginalized survival, largely confined to forest or highland refuge areas.]
So what I am exploring is the various pieces of evidence that have emerged over the last 20 years or so, largely from the field of genetics, to see whether that evidence is consistent with what we see in the musical evidence. And so far I have to say that at least some of this evidence does support the hypothesis I've been considering. But certainly not all. And there are still some very interesting problems that remain.

3 comments:

German Dziebel said...

"Sorry, but I forgot to consider Asiatic Russia, which does indeed have some remarkable polyphonic vocal traditions, though Russian folk polyphony seems more closely related to somewhat similar traditions in Europe and also Georgia (which is itself on the cusp between Europe and Asia) than to anything elsewhere in Asia. While true Russian folk polyphony is widespread, both in Europe and Asia, it appears to also be a marginalized survival, largely confined to forest or highland refuge areas.]"

I don't want to be a pain (and feel free to delete this comment as the one that conjures the specter of out of America) but I was reading "Playing Multi-Pipe Whistles of Northeastern Europe: Phenomenon of Collective Musical Performance," by Rūta Žarskiene // Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, T. 44, Fasc. 1/2 (2003), pp. 169- 180.

On pp. 171-173 she divides Russian and Lithuanian panpipe music into two kinds: 1) on older one has some very specific similarities (head-moving, division of pipes into pairs) with the Are-Are in Melanesia and the Kuna in South America (she references Hugo Zemp who you mentioned earlier on your blog); 2) a more recent one is similar to that of Georgians, Armenians, Huzuls (with a reference to the Musical Atlas by Vertkov, Blagodatov and Iazovickaia
1975:48,117,124 [in Russian]).

I may be getting things wrong but it looks like a Paleolithic connection between Russian/Lithuanian polyphony and the polyphony of Melanesia and South America is indeed there and can be connected to the distribution of macrohaplogroup R (U in Europe, B in Melanesia and South America). A connection with Georgia could be linked to the later migration of haplogroup X lineages across Europe.
I could add that the division of Russian and Lithuanian panpipes into pairs harkens back to the division of panpipe ensembles into moieties in Melanesia and the Andes (see Baumann, 1996 "Andean Music, Symbolic Dualism and Cosmology." In Cosmología y Música en los Andes).
It also seems that these ancient European instances of polyphony are closely related to Oceania and America, rather than to Africa, in a perfect accord with genetic evidence.

DocG said...

German: "I don't want to be a pain (and feel free to delete this comment as the one that conjures the specter of out of America) but I was reading "Playing Multi-Pipe Whistles of Northeastern Europe: Phenomenon of Collective Musical Performance," by Rūta Žarskiene // Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, T. 44, Fasc. 1/2 (2003), pp. 169- 180."

Yes, I refer to this paper and also another by Žarskiene in my "Echoes" essay.

"I may be getting things wrong but it looks like a Paleolithic connection between Russian/Lithuanian polyphony and the polyphony of Melanesia and South America is indeed there and can be connected to the distribution of macrohaplogroup R (U in Europe, B in Melanesia and South America). A connection with Georgia could be linked to the later migration of haplogroup X lineages across Europe."

The genetic associations you mention are interesting and could possibly be meaningful, yes.

But, as I argue in "Echoes," and also on this blog, the practices she describes most likely originate in Africa, where very similar practices are in fact widespread. Their survival in places as far afield as Russia, Komi, Melanesia, S. America, etc. attests to the great age of these musical traditions, which, as I see it, must have spread during the earliest stages of the Out of Africa migration. That's my theory, at least. And you have yours, which is very different, acknowledged.

"I could add that the division of Russian and Lithuanian panpipes into pairs harkens back to the division of panpipe ensembles into moieties in Melanesia and the Andes (see Baumann, 1996 "Andean Music, Symbolic Dualism and Cosmology." In Cosmología y Música en los Andes)."

Moieties are not the only source of dualism. What we find time and again in just about all these traditions is pairing based on sexuality, i.e. we find male-female pairs. The consistent references to male-female pairing in so many instances is a powerful argument for their historical connection, as survivals.

"It also seems that these ancient European instances of polyphony are closely related to Oceania and America, rather than to Africa, in a perfect accord with genetic evidence."

In perfect accord with the Out of Africa model, they are also closely related to African practices, and appear to have spread from there to the rest of the world via OOA.

German Dziebel said...

"Moieties are not the only source of dualism. What we find time and again in just about all these traditions is pairing based on sexuality, i.e. we find male-female pairs. The consistent references to male-female pairing in so many instances is a powerful argument for their historical connection, as survivals."

Fair enough. In some areas, male-female is the basis for dualism; in others older-younger. This is a long and potentially useful discussion, as I suspect some traditions may divide instruments and ensembles along the male-female axis, others along older-younger. Note that among the Ma'ale in East Africa the younger "half" of society (called "children") praising their parents sings monophonically, the older one ("parents") praising the deceased polyphonically. See Pp. 14-15 in Southern Ethiopia
MUSIC OF THE MAALE, Praises and blessings, by Hugo Ferran.

"In perfect accord with the Out of Africa model, they are also closely related to African practices, and appear to have spread from there to the rest of the world via OOA."

Yes, in principle, you can tie it to out of Africa. What I meant to say, though, is that, at least in Žarskiene's presentation the details of the older panpipe style reminded her of Melanesia and South America, not Africa. According to you, Russian, Lithuanian and Komi panpipe tradition(s) represent an "African" signature, while for Zarskiene (if she ever wrote about music in this way) they represent a "Melanesian-South American" signature.

Pygmies and Bushmen, for instance, don't map instruments onto male-female (or older-younger) and I'm not sure if they move their head from pipe to pipe or move the pipes in their hands (the two types of panpiping, according to Zarskiene).
Genetically, I can clearly see the musical signature and the genetic signature overlap between Melanesia/South America and "old Europe" but there's no African link here that would stand out as equally salient and straightforward. Say, L0, L1 and L2 (Pygmy and Bushmen mtDNA lineages) aren't closer to R, in the same way as U and B are closer to each other than either of them is to any lineage within macrohaplogroup M. Alternatively, populations that are rich in L3 (of which R, N and M are supposedly a part) don't have P/B style. You could argue, I guess, that out of African migrants branched off into Southeast Asia, on the one hand, and Europe, on the other, somewhere in India. But there's no panpiping tradition in India that would tie Africa with Southeast Asia and with Europe.

You could also argue that East Africa is that point of diversification (genetic and musical) that straddles the old European "node" and the Southeast Asian "node" but you'll have to show that East African panpipe traditions (do they exist there?) are somehow in-between P/B and the rest, according to such parameters as "mapping/pairing" and head-moving, which are used to establish the "kinship" between old Europe and South America/Melanesia. If these distinctions aren't visible in East Africa (and they are not visible in P/B), then you should also consider the possibility that P/B is derived from the "Melanesian/SouthAmerican" signature through loss of these parameters.

I assume the Cantometric database doesn't track "pairing" and body movements.