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rramadass • yesterday at 3:59 AM • 2 replies • view on HN

One thing that i think should be considered in human archaeology is the narratives/stories/myths from different cultures featuring "different sorts of people". Many were handed down orally from the misty past before being written down and hence may contain some truths to them.

We are often quick to dismiss them as mere fanciful story-telling of primitive cultures but i am not so sure.


Replies

gherkinnn • today at 7:37 AM

I have a soft spot for such folklore. Strictly speaking, much doesn't hold up to scrutiny but I see no wrong with wild conjecture for the fun of it.

For starters, some catastrophes do shine through more recent history:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

Then, Nuclear Evangelism is a fun idea, proposing a religion teaching us to stay away from nuclear waste for 10k years: https://www.nahomatsuda.com/nuclear-evangelism

Or you can poke around linguistics

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_linguistics

- https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/does-your-name-belong-...

The Arthurian legends and Robin Hood are two English-speaking examples of folklore snowballing into what we have today. I bet James Bond will join them in a few hundred year's time.

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snthpy • yesterday at 5:14 AM

Agreed. Considering the range from neaderthals to homo florensis etc...

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