The Origins of the World's Mythologies

Michael Witzel persuasively demonstrates the prehistoric origins of most of the mythologies of Eurasia and the Americas ('Laurasia').

Wales Professor of Sanskrit, Harvard University

- Contents
- §1 Introduction
- 1.1 What is myth, how do we study and compare it?
- 1.2 Definition; study of myth in the past
- 1.3 Comparative mythology
- 1.4 Laurasian mythology: establishing the common origin of the mythologies of Eurasia and the Americas
- 1.5 Earlier explanations of myth
- 1.6 Ur-forms, history, and archaeology
- 1.7 Summary
- § 2 Comparison and Theory
- 2.1 Theory and practice of comparisons
- 2.2 Reconstructing Laurasian mythology
- 2.2.1 Similarities
- 2.2.2 Regular correspondences and establishment of a unified narrative scheme
- 2.2.3 Oldest texts to be used
- 2.2.4 Geographically dispersed items
- 2.2.5 Reconstruction of the Laurasian common story line and individual myths
- 2.3 Enhancing the reconstruction: local, regional, macro-regional, and subcontinental variations
- 2.4 Reconstructing the Laurasian mythological system and inherent problems
- 2.5 Structure and content in some macro-areas of Laurasian myth.
- 2.5.1 Macro-areas
- 2.5.2 The Four ages in the Eurasian and Meso-American macro-areas
- 2.5.3 Later centers of innovations
- 2.5.4 Late borrowings (diffusion)
- 2.6 Some objections to the approach of historical comparative mythology
- 2.7 Conclusion
- § 3 Creation Myths: The Laurasian Story Line, Our First Novel
- 3.1 Primordial Creation
- 1. Chaos and darkness 2. Water 3. Earth diver and floating earth 4. Giant 5. Bull 6. Egg 7. Combined versions
- 3.2 Father Heaven, Mother Earth
- 3.3 Separation of heaven and earth, the prop
- 3.4. Creation of land
- 3.5 The demiurge or trickster
- 3.5.1 Creation of light
- 3.5.2. The slaying of the dragon
- 3.5.3 The theft of fire and of the heavenly drink
- 3.6 Generations, Four Ages and five suns
- 3.7 The creation of humans
- 3.8 Descent of 'noble' lineages
- 3.9 The flood
- 3.10 Heroes
- 3.11 The final destruction
- 3.12 Summary
- § 4 The Contributions of Other Sciences: comparison of language, physical anthropology, genetics, archaeology
- 4.1. Linguistics
- 4.2 Physical anthropology
- 4.3. Genetics
- 4.3.1 Recent advances in human population genetics
- 4.3.2 Overview of recent developments
- 4.3.3 Out of Africa
- 4.3.4 Movement northward after the last two Ice Ages
- 4.3.5 Genetics, language and mythology
- 4.3.6 Summary and outlook
- 4.4. Archaeology
- 4.4.1 Cave paintings and plastic art
- 4.4.2 Sacrifice in Late Palaeolithic art
- 4.4.3 Food production
- 4.4.4 Domestic animals and pastoralism
- 4.5 Other items of comparison: children's songs and games; ancient music and regional styles; use of colors; gestures and their regional variations.
- 4.6. Conclusions resulting from the comparison of the sciences involved
- § 5 The Countercheck: Australia, Melanesia, sub-Saharan Africa
- 5.1 Possible ways to countercheck
- 5.1.1 Method
- 5.1.2 Criteria for testing the theory
- 5.1.3 Diffusion vs genetic relationship
- 5.1.4 Later additions
- 5.2 Beyond Laurasia: Gondwana mythology
- 5.3. Gondwana mythologies
- 5.3.1 Sub-Saharan Africa, the Andamans, New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania -- an overview
- 5.3.2 Australia
- 5.3.2.1 Tasmania
- 5.3.3. Melanesia
- 5.3.3.1 Negritos and other southern remnant populations
- 5.3.4 Andaman Islands
- 5.3.5 Africa
- 5.3.5.1 Remnant populations: San and Pygmies
- 5.3.5.2 Sub-Saharan Africa
- 5.3.5.3 Northern influences: the western North-South highway
- 5.3.5.4 The eastern North-South Highway
- 5.3.6 Summary
- 5.4. Individual Gondwana myth types and their common characteristics
- 5.5 Secondary influences on Gondwana mythology
- 5.6. Conflicting myths in Gondwanaland
- 5.6.1 Gondwana element in Laurasian myth
- 5.6.2 Laurasian elements in Gondwana myth
- 5.7 Countercheck of Laurasian mythology based on Gondwana mythology
- 5.7.1 Essential features of Gondwana and Laurasian mythology
- 5.7.2 The flood myth in world wide perspective
- § 6 First Tales: Pan-Gaean Mythology
- 6.1 Beyond Laurasia and Gondwana: common myths
- 6.2 Our first tales
- § 7 Laurasian Mythology in Historical Development
- 7.1 Late Palaeolithic religion
- 7.1.1 Late Palaeolithic shamanism
- 7.1.2 Sacrifice
- 7.2. Changes from Palaeolithic to state societies
- 7.3. Dating Gondwana and Laurasian mythology
- § 8 Outlook
- 8.1 The meaning of Laurasian Mythology
- 8.2 Beyond Laurasia, Gondwana and Pan-Gaia
- 8.2.1 Persistence of myth
- 8.2.2 Some reasons
- 8.3 Epilogue