
Scientists have traced folk stories back to the Bronze Age - curtis
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/01/on-the-origin-of-stories/424629/?&amp;single_page=true
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JonnieCache
If this is interesting to you, then check out this frankly astonishing series
of lectures from Jordan Peterson at the university of toronto. It's a
psychology 40something course, and it covers the bible, ancient egypt,
mesopotamia, jung, freud, piaget, skinner, dostoevsky, nietzsche, hitler, lots
of evolutionary biology, lots of neurology, etc. etc. All tied up with the
question of how to act in ones life. It's a truly amazing synthesis.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tQOlQRp3gQ&list=PL22J3VaeAB...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tQOlQRp3gQ&list=PL22J3VaeABQByVcW4lXQ46glULC-
ekhOp)

That's the playlist for last year's course. The 2016 course has just started,
with a better camera this time. The first lecture is here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjnvtRgpg6g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjnvtRgpg6g)

~~~
kobayashi
You had me at "from Jordan Peterson". The man is utterly brilliant and
virtually anything he writes or says is worthwhile.

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ar-jan
Here's the actual study, sadly not linked to in the article:
[http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/3/1/150645](http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/3/1/150645)

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lobster_johnson
They mention Australian Aboriginal myths, and this was explained in David
Attenborough's new series about the Great Barrier Reef. Apparently they have
oral tales [1] and dances about how their coastline was slowly flooded (thus
creating the reef, which used to be the coast of Australia) over a period of
less than a hundred years. This coincides with a rise in sea levels around
6,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

[1]
[http://research.usc.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/u...](http://research.usc.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/usc:14264?queryType=vitalDismax&query=indigenous+australian+stories)

~~~
theoh
AIUI The Great Barrier Reef is a living coral reef which grew under water. I
am not sure if the sea level changed twice - once to reveal it to become the
coast of australia, and once to return it to the sea - or maybe the programme
was referring to a larger area of continental shelf being above sea level,
with its edge approximately coinciding with the reef? I'm interested in
knowing more but the linked paper doesn't seem to be downloadable.

~~~
lobster_johnson
This is a good visualization: [http://www.bluehabitats.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/04/Scree...](http://www.bluehabitats.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/04/Screen-Shot-2015-04-30-at-12.22.44.png)

The continental shelf is quite flat. The reef follows exactly along the rim of
the shelf. I believe the coast used to extend all the way to where the reef
now ends. The reef started growing as this part was slowly submerged in
shallow water. Coral reefs only build in the photic zome (<50m) since they
(specifically, the algae which produce the nutrients that coral polyps live
on) require photosynthesis.

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mirimir
There are Native American legends about the volcanic eruptions about 7,700
years ago that formed Crater Lake. [0,1]

[0] [http://knowledgenuts.com/2014/05/09/the-surprisingly-
accurat...](http://knowledgenuts.com/2014/05/09/the-surprisingly-accurate-
myth-of-the-creation-of-crater-lake/)

[1] [http://www.craterlakeinstitute.com/online-
library/historic-r...](http://www.craterlakeinstitute.com/online-
library/historic-resource-study/4d.htm)

~~~
teddyh
Reminds me of this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtI-
lSvS028](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtI-lSvS028)

~~~
mirimir
Indeed.

I wonder how far back oral traditions go. Could anything survive for 100K
years?

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dwhabcdefg
Similarly, there is good evidence that the Ho Chunk (Native American, upper
midwest) story of Red Horn has been preserved via oral tradition (aka "folk
tales") for over 3000 years:
[http://www.ontarioarchaeology.on.ca/Resources/Publications/o...](http://www.ontarioarchaeology.on.ca/Resources/Publications/oa_79-80salzer.pdf)

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mc32
Being able to trace oral tradition back in time and discerning origin and
carrier is eye opening... The aspect of peeking into the past is alluring...
However, what's the confidence level here? What are the basic assumptions?

~~~
pc2g4d
Exactly what I was wondering. These sorts of studies usually make assumptions
about the rate of mutation across time in order to estimate the date of
various divergences or of the ur-form, but these rates are difficult to
calibrate. For a cautionary tale, see also glottochronology.

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madaxe_again
I'm surprised that this is surprising. Aesop's fables are pretty well known
childhood reading, and they were ancient oral tales when he wrote them down
_2500_ years ago, in early iron age Greece.

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dredmorbius
Idries Shah's collection, _World Tales_ , from 1979 strongly suggests common
origins to many stories. It's also a wonderful children's book.

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Kinnard
Check out narremes, they're like memes:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narreme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narreme)

I'm wondering what it would take to program a story-teller?

I'm thinking NLP + Narremes + ML . . .

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anigbrowl
_“Most people would assume that folktales are rapidly changing and easily
exchanged between social groups,” says Simon Greenhill from the Australian
National University._

I imagine straw man arguments have been around since the Bronze age as well.

