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
E.J. Michael Witzel is Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University.
"Not since Frazer's Golden Bough has anyone achieved such a grand
synthesis of world mythology. Boldly swimming upstream against the
present scholarly emphasis on difference and context, Witzel
assembles massive evidence for a single, prehistoric, Ur-mythology.
An astonishing book."--Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished
Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of
Chicago and author of The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She
Was
"[Witzel's] novel approach brings a different perspective to the
myths he analyzes. By all rights, this book should provoke debate
and is, therefore, indispensable to any research library. Summing
Up: Essential." --CHOICE
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