Singing came before talking in the human lineage

Which came first: singing or talking?
Several links on Google indicate: singing.

If true, and I think there’s good evidence for this,
then take a look at how primate singing began in this YouTube video of gibbons expressing their emotions, individually, much as birds do.

Gibbons sing. Humans sing.
Gorillas sing to themselves in contentment when eating. That was recently discovered. Chimps sing when they get excited, joining in with a chorus of other chimps. That has been known for a long time.

Earlier
here, here and here we looked at the overlooked gibbon-human more direct connection. On the other ape branch, in the LRT gibbon ancestors were also basal to the orangutan > Australopithecus > chimp > gorilla clade. So singing goes back, back, back.

South American howler monkeys howl by convergence.

It might be argued
that we humans sing now for the same reason(s) gibbons likely sang millions of years ago as they do today. Note the young singers in the second YouTube video (directly above) are all breeding age males. Their audience is largely made up of breeding age females. Breeding occasionally takes place between the two, but most of the audience members go home to their parents, appreciating the singing and songs as a performance.

Talking is so important to human interactions.
Talking leads to writing, books lead to newspapers, radio, television and the Internet. Talking leads to trade, cooperation, heirarchy, technology, and travel. Thanks to singing gibbons and siamangs ten million years ago, talking, writing and the rest eventually became possible in the human lineage.

References
Several links on Google

 

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