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290• Some characteristic features of vocal polyphony show extraordinary stability.The type of polyphony, vertical coordination of parts, and the social organization ofsinging group are the most stable elements of polyphonic traditions, allowing scholars toconduct wide comparative research.• European polyphonic traditions, based on the use of drone and dissonant verticalcoordination between the parts is an extremely ancient phenomenon. Despite thelanguage change in most of the European countries, following the migration waves ofIndo-Europeans, Finno-Ugric peoples, Arabs and Turks, the ancient tradition of theEuropean vocal polyphony survived in the geographically isolated regions: highmountain ranges, forests, islands, continental fringes.• Part of European polyphonic traditions bears the traces of complex externalinfluences from the West Asian monophonic singing traditions and the late influence ofEuropean professional polyphony. The other part shows relatively complete survival theancient tradition of vocal polyphony.• Heterophony, as a separate type of polyphony (where the big group of singerssing the main melody in unison-heterophonic style), is not an evolutionary “transitionpoint” from monophony to polyphony. Geographic distribution of heterophony in EastEurope (the largest region of heterophonic polyphony) suggests that heterophonyoriginated as a result of the mixture of ancient European polyphonic and East and CentralAsian monophonic singing styles.• The origins of overtone singing must be connected to the complex ethnic andhistoric processes that took place on the territory of Central Asia from around the end ofthe first millennia A.D.• Some elements of the Lithuanian traditional polyphonic style sutartines showparallels with the ancient European drone-dissonant polyphony and must be extremelyold. On the other hand, the use of polytonality and canonic forms must be a relatively latephenomenon. I propose that three-part singing with the drone in the middle and secondalclashes between the parts (tradition that is known from the neighboring Latvia, Balkans,Caucasia, and Nuristan) must be the ancestor of both secondal polytonal sutartines andthe drone (“collective”) sutartines singing styles, still surviving in region Aukstaitia.• Nuristan polyphony from the Northeastern Afghanistan impenetrableHindukush Mountains is one of the best survivals of the ancient European tradition ofthree-part vocal polyphony with the drone in the middle, small range melodic partsaround the drone and clashing secondal dissonances.• Southeast Asian polyphony is a singing style of the aboriginal populations ofSoutheast Asia, southern China and Taiwan, pushed to the mountainous and forestregions by the migration waves of the East Asian populations from Central regions ofChina during the last centuries.• Tuareg drone polyphony is a unique phenomenon within the African context,surrounded by the sub-Saharan African parallel polyphony from south and monophony ofArab population from the north. On the other hand, in a broader Mediterranean and Euro-African context Tuareg polyphony shows obvious links with the ancient European dronepolyphony. I suggest uniting Tuareg polyphony in the “European polyphonic family”.• Ainu Polyphony, the most isolated vocal polyphonic tradition on our planetcould be connected with the migration of (1) the population from southeastern Asia andTaiwan, or (2) the Europe. The presence of European population in Central Asia and even