Fairytales much older than previously thought, say researchers
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
It's this same imagery we see in old tales like that. Vivid and terrifying creatures and events that apply enough fear to curb our curiosity in places that it might get the better of us.
Others tell you that your family is evil and you should seek advice from talking animals instead.
But the original was published as "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" or "Children's and Household Tales," so you're right that the Grimm's fully expected these would be read to or by kids.
The folk tales are both entertaining and gruesome. I remember one story where the father of a family is forced to decapitate his wife and sons, but then there is something with magic blood (I don't remember the details) and when he sticks their heads together, they come alive as if nothing had happened.
My favorites however were not the blood-soaked stories, but the stories where the resourceful younger brother of three -- or sometimes a veteran soldier who decided to make something of his life -- would either cheat others or, alternatively, reach success by being kind to a mischievous gnome or a mysterious old lady.
I think folk tales reflect the prejudices of the time. So yes, often ugliness meant evil, and old ladies were witches, and young women would be expected to be virtuous and fair-looking. But sometimes being kind to the old lady in the woods was the right thing to do, and sometimes fair-looking young women were spoiled and selfish.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-sea-rise-t...
The same for India:
http://www.earthporm.com/5-mind-blowing-underwater-cities/
See #3.
Most people don't realize just how deep human history is. Words people use every day are ~2000 years old. e.g. "via", goes back to the Roman times.
To give you an idea how unlikely a story would survive being passed down for 10,000 years is, the Tasmanian aborigines lost the ability to fish and and even start fire [1]. Given the critical nature of this information to survival how likely is it that a random story with no survival value would last 10,000 years?
1. http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/08/why-did-the-tas...
We know from the archaeological record that the Tasmanian aboriginal population was able to fish for thousands of years after the sea level rose and cutoff Tasmanian from mainland Australia. No one really know why, but after thousands of years of fishing they somehow lost the knowledge of how to catch fish. If something as useful as fishing is lost (the seas around Tasmania teem with fish) then how likely is it that a folk tale would be passed down for 10,000 years by oral tradition.
Compare and contrast the difference in sophistication between the Romans and the gauls or germanic tribes around 200AD, they would seem totally different worlds. It could have been similar in Aus.
Other indigenous Australian groups invented the boomerang - first ever practical use of aerofoil technology - precursor of modern flight and the woomera which launches a spear around 700-800m with accuracy.
From what I remember their art was somewhat codified so it could almost be "read", this would make it easier to share information across time and place.
If you have groups on two ends of the continent sharing very similar stories, then at least you'd have to allow the reasonable possibility it's more than just random noise.
As for different cultures sharing the same stories is no more surprising than people in England and China sharing similar stories. All pre-agricultural people have somewhat similar lives so we should expect they have similar stories and myths. Occam's razor should rule here.
Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yes#Etymology https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yeah#Etymology
tl;dr "Yeah" is the modern version of Old English "ġēa" which also means "so". "Yes" is a contraction of "ġēa sī", or something like "let it be so".
10,000 years is 500 generations. How many generations of family stories do you have? I have zero from further back than my great-grandparents, that's 3 generations ago, let alone 500.
The claim of 10,000 year old stories is very extraordinary, and so extraordinary evidence is necessary to be convincing.
How can we possibly know how fast it was changing before it was written down?
Also, English has been written down since around 500 and still changed constantly and rapidly after that.
Reminds me of all those internet scientists that ask "but what about the sun?" when the topic of AGW comes up. No shit, Sherlock, never thought about that blinding thing in the sky before!
Sorry for the rant and attacking you, but sometimes a bit of humility is warranted when it comes to science.
But you know, a common ancestor who imparted the wisdom of ye olde wurld on to generations to come, like a LotR type sceanrio, that's not making the square evidence fit in a round hole. /sceptic
http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol31/berezkin.pdf
This theory goes back over a 100 years:
"Its stars seem to have been called the Bear over nearly the whole of our continent when the first Europeans, of whom we have knowledge, arrived. They were known as far north as Point Barrow, as far east as Nova Scotia, as far west as the Pacific Coast, and as far south as the Pueblos."
- Stansbury Hagar, “The Celestial Bear”, The Journal of American Folklore (JAF), Apr.-Jun., 1900
"Occasional local names notwithstanding, the possibility of the bear as Ursa Major having originated independently is inconceivable. Classical Old World mythology is replete with the bear in its role as Ursa Major. Ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic all contain references to this motif."
- William B. Gibbon, “Asiatic Parallels in North American Star Lore: Ursa Major”, JAF, Jul.-Sep., 1964.
I'm skeptical. Bears used to be very commonplace and a big (literally) deal to anyone who lived in N. America. I don't find it inconceivable at all that bears would figure prominently in N. American spiritualism, which would include the stars.
We have a core psychology of what it means to be human that remains unchanged and so its stories remain unchanged.
For the majority of our time on the planet the oral tradition was all that was available to us...
I think the simpler the elements of a story are--e.g., good vs evil, good eventually wins, etc., (easily remember-able) the greater the odds are that it will be passed down through generations, or the ages, with changes and embellishments...
edit: of course, I'm calling the Grimm publications the "original forms" here - I'm sure that most were unrecognizable even then from whatever they had been when they were first told (if they were ever told a first time rather than just evolving from nothing through a continual telephone-game/repurposing process.)
There are volumes and volumes of books about how every story can be described by just a few "proto" stories. It's not entirely surprising that there were proto stories before the written word.
Jordan has uncanny ability to piece together observations on human behavior with science and mythology; expounding humanity's nuances, ticks and everyday common behavior through the lens of ancient mythology, evolution and ideas and theories by notable psychologists and philosophers.
Keep an open mind while listening, but also be prepared to think critically about many of his assumptions and assertions as Jordan takes a number of 'educated' leaps (and demands you follow) in regards to published studies and what they may infer, but the leaps are never illogical - just yet to be soundly proven.
Overall, listening to these lectures truly was a transformative experience for myself.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10941363 [2] https://www.youtube.com/user/JordanPetersonVideos [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqONu6wDYaE
edit: linked this story and not the previous one.
Perhaps it predates even language and became embedded instinctually, thus explaining the sightings.
It's just hard to prove.