Study suggests dance and lullabies aren't universal human behaviors

This Plaintive Song Is From a Land Without Lullabies

In the 1830s, American poet and educator Henry Wadsworth Longfellow reportedly declared that “music is the universal language of mankind.” Since that time, many scholars and scientists have come to believe that making songs and rhythms is embedded deep in the biology of Homo sapiens, an evolutionary adaptation forged over millennia, likely to enable social bonding: Lilting lullabies to soothe children and bind them to their mothers, rhythmic jig…

Study suggests dance and lullabies aren't universal human behaviors

Social singing and dance are often assumed to be hard-wired into the human condition; studies have supported the conclusion that these are common across cultures. But new research from an anthropologist challenges the idea that dance and lullabies are universal among humans. The study draws on 43 years of research with an Indigenous population in Paraguay.

Dance and Lullabies Aren’t Universal Human Behaviors, New Study Suggests

Members of the Northern Aché community take part in a musical performance around a fire in Paraguay. Credit: Bjarne Fostervold / CC BY-NC 4.0 A new study suggests that dance and lullabies may not be part of all human cultures, challenging the widely held belief that these behaviors are universal. Researchers from the University of California, Davis, and Arizona State University spent decades studying the Northern Aché, an Indigenous group in Par…

Dance and Lullabies May Not Be Human Universals After All

New research challenges the long-held belief that dance and lullabies are universal to human culture. Drawing on over four decades of ethnographic work among the Northern Aché people in Paraguay, researchers found no evidence of group dancing or infant-directed singing.

Lullabies and dances are not an integral part of human civilization. A people have been found in Paraguay who do not dance or lull babies to sleep with songs, according to an article published in the journal Current Biology.