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‣ During the last 20 years of my work in the field of the comparativestudy of traditional polyphony my initial idea about the geographic correlationbetween the historically developed human populations (races) and the regions ofdistribution of polyphonic and monophonic singing seems even stronger.‣ As is clear from my attitude towards the origins of group singing inpre-human society, I totally reject the still-popular idea of the later developmentof multipart singing from the initial monophonic (one-part) singing. On thecontrary, I suggest that group singing was a part of initial pre-humancommunication and it started disappearing after the drastic advance of articulatedspeech.‣ According to my model, Homo Sapiens, equipped with humanintelligence, enabling them to have a dialogical communication, the ability ofasking questions and the ability of mental cooperation, existed long before theadvance of articulated speech;‣ Comparing the chronological depths suggested by twocontemporary conflicting theories of the origins of Homo sapiens (1)Multiregional Evolution Theory and (2) the Recent African Origin Theory(respectively around 2.000.000–1.000.000 and 200.000–100.000 years ago), andthen comparing these dates with the often-suggested chronology of thedevelopment of articulated speech (around 30-40 000 years ago) it is clear thatthere is a good theoretical possibility that the first human migrants in differentregions of the world did not come to new territories fully equipped witharticulated speech.‣ This simple chronological comparison suggests that speech wasdeveloped by different human populations after their initial migration from theAfrican “cradle” into different parts of the world.‣ Living in different regions of the world with a different climate,geography and ecology, different human populations could have shifted toarticulated speech in different epochs. I understand how does this idea soundsto the reader, but, on the other hand, the alternative idea that after humansmigrated to different parts of the world (still without fully developed articulatedspeech), they independently shifted to articulated speech synchronously, seemsmuch more unrealistic.‣ The shift to articulated speech marginalizes vocal communication,with the subsequent loss of the function of group polyphonic singing. So with theshift to articulated speech the long process of the disappearance of the tradition ofvocal polyphony began. But, according to my model, it began in differentpopulations at different times, which is why in some populations the tradition ofvocal polyphony is almost absent (like this is the case in among East Asian, orAustralian Aboriginal populations), and in some populations it is still thriving (asamong populations of Europe and particularly, sub-Saharan Africa).‣ Therefore, I suggest that the ancestors of the East Asian, AustralianAboriginal and most of Native American populations shifted to articulated speechmuch earlier than the ancestors of the sub-Saharan African and Europeanpopulations.16