[Kim Dae-sik Column] Homo sapiens, Perhaps Built Civilization Because They Danced Together

⑦ Archaeology of Dance

The Paleolithic cave paintings discovered in the Lascaux and Chauvet caves in southern France are filled with images of various animals and people hunting those animals. However, the cave paintings found in the Bhimbetka caves in central India, dating back about 40,000 years, are different. Around fifteen people are standing in a line, linking arms. It looks like they might be standing in two rows or perhaps forming a large circle facing each other.

This scene, reminiscent of a K-pop group's "knife choreography," is interpreted by most experts as people dancing?that is, the first dancers of humanity. This raises an intriguing question: why do humans dance? What benefit does dancing provide that led humans 40,000 years ago to depict scenes of dancing?

A perfect explanation for the origin and function of dance is unfortunately impossible because dance uses the body itself as a "tool," leaving no material traces. However, based on evolutionary biology and neuroscience data, various hypotheses can be proposed. Unlike simple movements such as leg motions needed for walking or hand gestures for grasping something, dance involves rhythm, repetition, patterns, and flow.

Gestures of Rhythm, Repetition, Pattern, and Flow: Why Humans Dance

A cave painting from about 40,000 years ago discovered in the Bhimbetka Caves in central India.

In particular, humans are almost unique among animals in showing the phenomenon called "entrainment" without prior learning or experience. This is the ability to automatically tap fingers or move the body in sync with the beat and tempo of sounds.

The moment sound and movement synchronize, the next sound can be predicted by the body in advance. This means one can prepare to flee from an unseen predator. But that was only the beginning. Most of the time, we dance together, as seen in the Bhimbetka paintings. So why did humans start dancing in groups? It can be hypothesized that dance, which began as synchronization between sound and body, expanded at some point to synchronization between bodies.

Like other mammals, humans are capable of "imitation learning." This is a highly efficient learning algorithm that allows one to acquire abilities not directly experienced by imitating parents and friends.

Thanks to this, it might have been a natural phenomenon for people around someone who accidentally had a good sense of rhythm to start imitating them. But something unexpected happened here. The moment my movements synchronize with others', an illusion called "self-expansion" begins in our brains.

Humans Dancing in Groups: Self-Expansion through Synchronization

Newborns do not know where the boundaries of their bodies lie. But gradually, among many visible movements, the brain starts learning that some movements have a direct causal relationship with one's own will. While others' movements are unpredictable, my movements are predictable. This is why, neuroscientifically, the "self" can be described as the union of all predictable things.

So what if multiple people's movements synchronize through imitation learning? Especially if the movements follow the beat and rhythm of sounds, we can predict not only our own movements but also those of 10, 100 people. What our brain can predict is the "self." The moment we dance together, our selves expand, and the boundary between "I" and "we" dissolves.

And the moment "I" become "we," Homo sapiens are no longer infinitely weak animals. A predator that could never be defeated alone can be overcome by ten people working together. If the selves of 100 people synchronize, they can hunt mammoths, and synchronized selves of ten million can build an empire.

Dance, which began as a one-dimensional synchronization of sound and movement, might have been the hidden secret behind the success story of "human civilization." Homo sapiens, who found a way to gather, dance, and communicate together, survived, while Neanderthals, who did not, may have gone extinct. It was because humans danced together that they could become the rulers of the Earth.

Daesik Kim, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, KAIST