The Origins of the World's Mythologies

E.J. Michael Witzel is Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University.

• 1.1 ; What is myth, how do we study and compare it? ; 1.2 ; Definition; study of myth in the past (from Vico to Levi-Strauss) ; 1.3 ; Comparative mythology ; 1.4 ; A new proposal: Laurasian mythology ; 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 are 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 its 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 ; 2.6. ; Some objections to the approach of historical comparative mythology ; 3 Creation Myths : The Laurasian story line: our first novel ; 3.1 ; Creation from: ; 1. Chaos 2. Water 3.Earth diver/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/ trickster ; 3.5.1 ; Creation of Light ; 3.5.2. ; The slaying of the dragon ; 3.5.3 ; The theft of fire /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 ; 4.1. ; Linguistics ; 4.2 ; Physical anthropology ; 4.3. ; Genetics ; 4.3.1 ; Recent advances in human population genetics ; 4.3.2 ; Out of Africa ; 4.3.4 ; Movement northward after the last two Ice Ages ; 4.3.5 ; Genetics, language and mythology ; 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 ; 4.6. ; Conclusions resulting from the comparison of the sciences involved ; 5 ; The countercheck: Australia, Melanesia, sub-Saharan Africa ; 5.1 ; Possible counterchecks and falsification ; 5.1.1 ; Method ; 5.1.2 ; Criteria for falsification ; 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 ; 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 N.-S. 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, falsification 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 ; 7.1.1 ; 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

A radical idea...