Will we see the discourse goalposts move to pre-historical accuracy?
Snarkiness aside, I really wish the disciplines would communicate more in matters like these, because I think that the implications for our greater cultural consciousness regarding human mythology and modern sociological structures are kinda cool?
so i went and read the study because i was curious what these stories actually are and the data they use comes specifically from indo-european speaking societies so it’s not a worldwide thing. but the method they used is pretty amazing.
anyway, the only story they could confidently trace back to the bronze age (the bronze age!!) is ‘the smith and the devil’. three other stories (’the boy steals the ogre’s treasure’, ‘the animal bride’ and ‘the grateful animals’) have a +50% likelihood of being part of the proto-indo-european story corpus.
and here are the other stories that can be traced at least one level up from current european languages:
Studies like these combine two of my great interests – phylogeny and folklore!
(Actually, waaaay back in the day I had the idea to do this exact work, but I hadn’t latched on to an adviser, so I couldn’t. So I see papers like this pass my eyeballs in the way that people who want dogs/babies look at other people’s dogs/babies, or people who want to write novels look at the friend’s novels. You’re happy for them! And glad that they’re getting attention for it! But you wonder what YOURS would have looked like… and now, is it too late? You convince yourself that it’s too late. You tell the baby/dog/novel that you love it and you’re proud of them. You sulk quietly when they go.)
Er
ANYWAY
Just spitballing here
the oldest human story was likely one that carried information about survival or the environment, and likely was one involving fire, the creation of the world, and possibly dragons.
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