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295European and Middle Eastern monophonic singing traditions have a non-precise “rubato”rhythm. At the same time, most of the polyphonic traditions that do not show signs of themixture with Middle Eastern type monophonic music are based on precise rhythm.Precise rhythm is absolutely dominates in sub-Saharan singing traditions, and in manyEuropean and Polynesian polyphonic traditions.• The choral singing of our ancestors most certainly was accompanied by adance, clapping and generally bodily rhythmic movements involving all participants.This kind of syncretic unity of singing and dancing is conspicuous in all more or lessarchaic musical traditions. This ancient syncretism must have very deep roots in ourconsciousness, as even today when we hear the rhythmic music, we instinctively want tofollow it with tapping, stomping or bodily movements.• The use of body percussion is also highly probable for the ancient communalsinging of our ancestors. Even higher is the possibility of group stomping, creating asteady basis for the singing rhythm. When we hear rhythmic music we have an urge tofollow it, and stomping is one of the basic and most usual means to do this.• The singing style of our ancestors most likely was loud and straight. Mostarchaic polyphonic singing traditions are still extremely loud. With every member of thesociety participating in singing, dancing and clapping you would not expect to hear thesombre sound of the quiet and gentle choral music.• I think we can talk about the rhythmic characteristics more precisely. As mostsub-Saharan Africa music is almost exclusively is based on duple rhythms (2/4, 4/4),and the same is true for many west Georgian polyphonic traditions, and this simplestrhythm is arguably the most widespread in different cultures of the world (bothpolyphonic and monophonic), I suggest that duple rhythm could be a part of ancientcommon polyphony as well.• The tempo most likely was became faster during the performance. This featureis a usual part of archaic dance-songs. They start at a relatively slow or medium tempoand the tempo gets faster and the pitch rises during the performance in growingexcitement.• The type of polyphony is naturally a very important feature for our topic. Outof the “primary” types of polyphony we can consider types such as drone, parallelism,and ostinato as the possible initial elements of the archaic polyphony. Not all of themshow universality in the most important polyphonic regions. Here are my considerationson these types of polyphony:• Drone could be a good nominee for the claim of the primordial universality, butthe whole sub-Saharan Africa, this most active “heaven of traditional polyphony” isalmost totally “drone-free” and therefore makes the drone’s claim on ancient universalityvery dubious. By the way, the west Georgian Svanetians, arguably one of the bestsurvivors of ancient polyphony in Europe, are also not very keen on the use of the dronetype of polyphony.• Parallelism that dominates sub-Saharan African polyphony is present in manypolyphonic traditions in other parts of the world and could be another good nominee foruniversality, but the European polyphonic tradition’s obsession with the drone (and notso much parallelism) casts some doubts on parallelism as well. Although it is importantto note that, arguably, one of the most archaic and the best preserved Europeanpolyphonic traditions, those of the west-Georgian Svanetians from Europe’s highest