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Books > Humanities > Archaeology > Archaeology by period / region > Prehistoric archaeology
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The Origins of the World's Mythologies (Paperback, New)
Loot Price: R2,376
Discovery Miles 23 760
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The Origins of the World's Mythologies (Paperback, New)
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In this comprehensive book Michael Witzel persuasively demonstrates
the prehistoric origins of most of the mythologies of Eurasia and
the Americas ('Laurasia'). By comparing these myths with others
indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa, Melanesia, and Australia
('Gondwana Land') Witzel is able to access some of the earliest
myths told by humans. The Laurasian mythologies share a common
story line that dates the world's creation to a mythic time and
recounts the fortunes of generations of deities across four or five
ages and human beings' creation and fall, culminating in the end of
the universe and, occasionally, hope for a new world. These stories
are contrasted with the 'southern' mythologies, which lack most of
these features. Witzel's investigations are buttressed by
archaeological data, as well as by comparative linguistics, and
human population genetics. All suggest the African origins of
anatomically modern humans and their subsequent journey along
Indian Ocean shores, up to Australia and southern China, around
60,000 BCE. These itinerants' early mythology survives partly in
sub-Saharan Africa and points along the path - the Andaman Islands,
Melansia, and Australia. Laurasian mythology, Witzel shows,
developed along this vast trail, probably in southwest Asia, around
40,000 BCE. Identifying features shared by virtually all
mythologies of the globe, Witzel suggests that these features
probably informed myths recounted by the communities of the
'African Eve.' As such, they are the earliest substantiation of our
ultimate ancestors' spirituality. Moreover the Laurasian myths' key
features, Witzel shows, survive today in all major religions and
their multiple ideological offshoots.
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