Using Folk Music To Track Human Migration
Traditional Dance Group Of Taiwan's Tsou People The Tsou are one of the aboriginal Taiwanese groups whose music researchers studied. 小卡 via Wikimedia Commons Where humans go, they bring their culture with them. Working backward from this, researchers led by Steven Brown of Canada's McMaster University sought to see if similarity in folk music among divergent groups matched their genetic closeness, indicating a shared history. The scientists compared the folk music of Taiwan's aboriginal, non-ethnically Chinese peoples. Testing 220 songs from nine distinct Taiwanese aboriginal groups, on such points as pitch and rhythm, the researchers were able to track similarities and differences in the groups' music. To demonstrate that variations in the music were a result of migration, the researchers cross-checked the population's mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down from mother to...