Scientists Trace Society’s Myths to Primordial Origins | Hacker News Reader

Scientists Trace Society’s Myths to Primordial Origins

scientificamerican.com

137 pointsVigier26 comments

How do we know these actually relate to the same original story and not to, say, the fact that there weren't quite so many things to do back then but look at stars and hunt, so there would be a lot of random stories about starts and hunting, along with other common elements of daily life?

That's a great question which doesn't appear to be answered in the article or the paper. Maybe there is convergent evolution for features in myths just like in biology.

I don't know an answer to your question, but I wonder what makes a story original, when it's common to say, every love story is the same story told over again.

Another approach (which would be time-consuming, admittedly) would be to work from the opposite direction - how many themes in the myths of a particular group don't seem to be found elsewhere? That would tend to argue against some kind convergent evolution, at least, but might not rule out inconsistent transmission to other groups. Even in the article, it looks like the data could be used to emphasize the outliers and not the common thread (which does seem to potentially suffer from selection bias).

Isn't the answer to this the same as the answer to Jung's hypothesis?

> “Myths are first and foremost psychic phenomena that reveal the nature of the soul,” Jung argued. But the dissemination of Cosmic Hunt stories around the world cannot be explained by a universal psychic structure. If that were the case, Cosmic Hunt stories would pop up everywhere. Instead they are nearly absent in Indonesia and New Guinea and very rare in Australia but present on both sides of the Bering Strait, which geologic and archaeological evidence indicates was above water between 28,000 and 13,000 B.C.

(So, the absence of Cosmic Hunt stories in New Guinea, Indonesia, and Australia would seem to be a counter to your hypothesis, unless for some reason we could explain why people in those regions thought less about stars and hunting.)

"very rare" "nearly absent" does acknowledge that they do exist though.

So we know at least they will spontaneously appear. And if it's a good meme why didn't it spread?

The stars are a huge part of any lore. Hunting is a huge part of a mans life (Along with women)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_astronom...

I don't think that's a good counterargument--there are hundreds and probably thousands of data points in those regions. Using a simplistic metaphor, what are the odds that when all the cultures in the world rolled the dice to decide whether they'd have a Cosmic Hunter myth almost all of the ones in Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea rolled not to? Vanishingly small.

I don't know.

Stories like this sound pretty close to me -

http://members.optusnet.com.au/virgothomas/space/abobeliefs2... (Two Brothers & The Pointer Stars)

All primitive societies obviously have stories of the stars being people and animals.

Men were hunters, the animals will be game.

Finding a exact narrative the fits your model from thousands of data points feels possible to me.

[edit] From the authors paper read "What about the Saharan versions of Cosmic Hunt" and tell me they are not just making stuff up

>From the authors paper read "What about the Saharan versions of Cosmic Hunt" and tell me they are not just making stuff up

What about it seems as if they are "making stuff up"?

They summarize several versions of some such stories, with differentiating details, and even give the papers and studies where they were collected by anthropologists, etc.

>the absence of Cosmic Hunt stories in New Guinea, Indonesia, and Australia would seem to be a counter to your hypothesis,

Following the genetics metaphor, the distinctiveness of the myth story in that region of the world is due to the isolation of the Australian continent that doesn't allow for a free-flow of genetic information from the rest of the world and therefore shows a loss of "cultural variation" because only a few "founders" whose consciousness at the time of their progeniting is not representative of the diversity of the global human consciousness. (Founder effect, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder_effect)

Applying Biology/genetics as a metaphor for the transmission of human culture and ideas is actually an very dangerous and subversive idea, for instance, following this logic, the most popular religion or dominant culture is not necessarily the most useful to the host genome, but the best viral "meme" that can replicate itself while balancing its own replication vs. the viability of the host (e.g., a malaria that allowed the host and its transmission vector to slightly evolve partial defenses against it so that it too can survive and replicate or the benign Herpes simplex virus that has 90% penetration rate).

Human culture/consciousness has lots of garbage, "non-coding" regions that a virus can replicate its repeat sequences onto the collective consciousness like say Kim Kardashian's sex tape in our non-coding region for entertainment, but mutating the essential "coding" regions is trickier, like knocking out the urge to procreate (see the downfall of the Shakers variant).

Perhaps a much more hopeful idea is that should a virus really turn from benign to virulent, evolutionary pressure bears down on an otherwise complacent population to select for the best defense against it; until this cultural idea is eliminated or the specie is and thus the cycle repeats as Nature allows for the next host or the virus take over the vacated niche.

> Applying Biology/genetics as a metaphor for the transmission of human culture and ideas is actually an very dangerous and subversive idea

I hope that in this day and age, the danger is mostly passed and individuals can take part in free inquiry without fear.

It should be obvious that evolution plays a role here. After all, it has the three main ingredients: replication, mutation, and selection.

> following this logic, the most popular religion or dominant culture is not necessarily the most useful to the host genome, but the best viral "meme" that can replicate itself while balancing its own replication vs. the viability of the host

doesn't sound obviously wrong

> for instance, following this logic, the most popular religion or dominant culture is not necessarily the most useful to the host genome, but the best viral "meme" that can replicate itself while balancing its own replication vs. the viability of the host (e.g., a malaria that allowed the host and its transmission vector to slightly evolve partial defenses against it so that it too can survive and replicate or the benign Herpes simplex virus that has 90% penetration rate).

Many religions (in particular Islam and Christianity) strike me as being just that. They have features that make them viral (through proselytising, and sometimes forced conversions), and make it hard for their hosts to get rid of them (due to social pressure and penalties against apostates). These features are integral to the success of the religion, and are hidden under mythological/theological disguise.

The myths act as a vector, and these "features", which are behaviours that can be very complex (running a religious court system, enforcing those laws, proselytising), are effectively the payload of the virus. They turn society into a machine to spread the religion further and protect it, even if this comes at the cost of other achievements (technological progress, greater equality between demographic groups...).

Considering Ursa Major is only visible in the North Pole AFAICT, the fact that the myth isn't present in Indonesia, Australia, and New Guinea supports the GP's hypothesis.

that's a very good point, though it would also imply there's something more "big game like" about Ursa than some southern-sky constellation.

>the fact that there weren't quite so many things to do back then but look at stars and hunt, so there would be a lot of random stories about starts and hunting, along with other common elements of daily life?

If that was the case, the stories would be found in most/all places that there was hunting groups (e.g. maybe not in the Alaska). But they are not, they are in specific places where people seem to have migrated and brought them with them.

Besides, there are far more common themes, resemblances and details (that change as the story passes on) apart from "there is hunting and some constellations" involved.

Finally, while hunting might have been a big part of daily life, the idea that there were few things to do than "look at stars and hunt" seems a little off.

Modern anthropologists have had the opportunity to observe several groups of neolithic hunter-gatherers. They hunt or gather or prepare food for a couple of hours a day, and spend the rest of the day napping and playing. The pressures that create the variety of more developed cultures simply don't exist for them.

Of course, sometimes the whole tribe dies from disease or starvation or war, but those are relatively rare events.

Here's a link to one of the author's academic papers with detailed description of methodology:

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00932197/file/A_2...

Makes me think of Joseph Campbell's work on the Power of Myth[0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGx4IlppSgU&list=PLePFb3rlFb...

Look at the actual tree chart "Genealogy of Myths". There are numerous Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Inuit examples from northeastern North America, a number of examples from southeastern North America, and a small cluster of cultures from Siberia and the Russian Far East. A common myth transmitted through North America and possibly the Russian Far East is very plausible—we have multiple lines of evidence of cultural transmission among the preColumbian cultures of North America, including language, technology, and other beliefs.

Outside of that sphere? There's two Tuareg examples from North Africa, two Basque examples, and the Greek myth, which is represented by four(!) individual writers. It's certainly possible that there was some transmission of this myth around the Mediterranean, but... The Greek myth is apparently closely related to the Ojibwe example from the Great Lakes region(?). Let's also note that there is no other evidence of any cultural transmission between these groups and North America before the modern era. This is very implausible.

Cultural practices can be invented as well as transmitted. How implausible is it that these represent independent inventions? Well, it's very common to relate constellations to animals, heroes, or divine beings. The constellations naturally follow each other through the sky, over the course of a night and over the course of seasons. Hunting was a primary subsistence activity in every pre-agricultural culture. These are not ideas that are hard to tie together.

Note also the likelihood of chance resemblances between languages. http://www.zompist.com/chance.htm

It's not unreasonable that there should be similar stories, given the ubiquity of hunting culture and the brilliant night skies. But consider the number of visible stars and the possible patterns they might be grouped into, and the number of possible interpretations of those patterns. It seems highly unlikely that both the Greeks and the Iroquois would independently group the stars we call Ursa Major into a single constellation associated with a bear. To the modern eye, it looks nothing like a bear, and the stars comprising it might be split into any number of combinations to make other constellations. It seems much more likely that either there was some kind of communication between the two cultures, or that they shared a common mythological origin that preceded both: the article's 'proto-myths', accompanied by proto-astronomy.

Ursa Major is a very common constellation. It's identified in many way by many cultures: it's also common it identify it as a plow, cart, or wagon. To me it's just the Big Dipper.

This is sort of like the birthday problem in statistics: It's overwhelmingly unlikely that two specific cultures would at random choose precisely the same identification. But it's extremely likely that of all cultures, there are two would choose the same identification.

Real evidence of cultural contact between Ancient Greece and the Ojibwe would be a major breakthrough. But this is just random similarities.

Great article - I shared it with a WeChat history group here in China, and the reception was great. It's being deployed to Chinese world history students this week. Also, lovely to see some leading work from the Sorbonne. Yay France!

> Reptiles, immortal like others who shed their skin or bark and thus rejuvenate, are contrasted with mortal men and/or are considered responsible for originating death, perhaps by their bite. In this context, a person in a desperate situation gets to see how a snake or other small animal revives or cures itself or other animals. The person uses the same remedy and succeeds.

Interesting. In the epic of gilgamesh (one of the oldest tales preserved in written form) it is the protagonist who seeks immortality and then has the plant which is supposed to grant it stolen by a snake which then sheds its skin.

I don't see the connection between biologists analyzing DNA (very precise and objective) and someone analyzing different versions of stories. With stories, which aspects you focus on and how you score similarity are highly subjective.

Can anyone who knows about the technique elaborate?

Looks more like cold reading to me.

And to make it worse they would have been translated with a modern viewpoint.

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