Is it likely that music-makers in the past were very much different from those today?

Way, way back in this discussion (4 Nov 2017) I asked

Do those who make an academic study of these things have anything similar to the geologists concept of "uniformitarianism"?

If so the recent evidence that those at the 'humblest' levels of society do write songs allows us to ask "do we have any evidence that 'ploughboys, milkmaids, weavers, etc, ' didn't write songs?" rather than having a strict requirement for evidence that they did.

I can't remember how far I was through the book at that point, but on finishing it I was left with the feeling that music-makers were much the same in the past as now.