The Odissey: a Baltic tale?

[crazy canuck]

Couldn't it also be memories from the flooding of the Persian gulf?

Not memories of the people who inhabited the hills in Canaan. Their version of the flood story was based on the Sumerian flood story.  The Sumerian flood story was probably a memory of the flooding of the Persian gulf.

[Razgovory]

There's no particular reason to believe myths are ancient memories of cataclysmic events.  Flood myths are common for two reasons.  One is that floods are common occurrence.  The second is that fossils of shells are fairly common and can be found far away from the sea.  A flood myth explains why you find shellfish fossils in the mountains.  

[Maladict]

Couldn't it also be memories from the flooding of the Persian gulf?

Or the Black Sea deluge, or the drowning of Dogger Land. Like Noah's flood, deluges are in the collective memories of nearly all ancient peoples.

[Caliga]

Can't it also just be people making shit up?  Why can't we allow for the possibility that ancient peoples had vivid imaginations?

[Maladict]

Can't it also just be people making shit up?  Why can't we allow for the possibility that ancient peoples had vivid imaginations?

It could be. But I think they're more likely embellishments of something that did happen a long time before. These are oral traditions, designed to keep histories and memories alive.

[crazy canuck]

Couldn't it also be memories from the flooding of the Persian gulf?

Or the Black Sea deluge, or the drowning of Dogger Land. Like Noah's flood, deluges are in the collective memories of nearly all ancient peoples.

How would anybody in the Fertile Crescent have any knowledge of what happened Doggerland?

What is this collective memory?

[Razgovory]

Can't it also just be people making shit up?  Why can't we allow for the possibility that ancient peoples had vivid imaginations?

It could be. But I think they're more likely embellishments of something that did happen a long time before. These are oral traditions, designed to keep histories and memories alive.

They really aren't designed to keep histories and memories alive.  Oral traditions are used to explain the present, to entertain people, to increase the status of the speaker or a leader.

[Maladict]

Couldn't it also be memories from the flooding of the Persian gulf?

Or the Black Sea deluge, or the drowning of Dogger Land. Like Noah's flood, deluges are in the collective memories of nearly all ancient peoples.

How would anybody in the Fertile Crescent have any knowledge of what happened Doggerland?

What is this collective memory?

If material culture was transmitted between the two (styles of pottery, tools etc), why not stories as well?

[Maladict]

Can't it also just be people making shit up?  Why can't we allow for the possibility that ancient peoples had vivid imaginations?

It could be. But I think they're more likely embellishments of something that did happen a long time before. These are oral traditions, designed to keep histories and memories alive.

They really aren't designed to keep histories and memories alive.  Oral traditions are used to explain the present, to entertain people, to increase the status of the speaker or a leader.

I'd say the transmission of knowledge is the driving force, but it can certainly be applied to different effects.

[The Brain]

My impression is that in many societies oral traditions had a record-keeping/historical function. AND also in many cases an entertainment function, much like a modern history book or historical movie often is designed with a mind to entertain. And that oral traditions typically existed on a spectrum between at one end dry record-keeping and at the other pure entertainment.

I can use Viking Age Sweden as an example. While they did have writing, as far a we know it wasn't used for extensive record-keeeping or story-telling until later, in the Scandinavian Middle Ages. It was primarily an oral society. The law was passed down as an oral tradition. In the great halls stories of royal ancestors (providing legitimacy, tales of glory, and "earthy" entertainment) were an oral tradition. Reciting your ancestors (in a way your neighbors didn't know to be wrong) helped provide legal foundation for your claim as established bonde (free man who owned land). Knowledge of critical information like business contracts and travelling routes were transmitted orally. Stories of gods and legendary heroes provided entertainment. Old wisdom was passed down as poems.

In the 20th century the sagas of kings were kind of scoffed at as pure fiction, but people now seem to see that they are likely based on history (which obviously doesn't mean that every bit is true). It would make sense for them from an Occam perspective to be based on history. Archaeology has offered interesting confirmation of some stories.

We're leaving Viking Age Sweden and return to the general. Do people sometimes go overboard with complete faith in oral traditions? Yes. Can oral traditions be dismissed as historical records out of hand? No.

[Razgovory]

Can't it also just be people making shit up?  Why can't we allow for the possibility that ancient peoples had vivid imaginations?

It could be. But I think they're more likely embellishments of something that did happen a long time before. These are oral traditions, designed to keep histories and memories alive.

They really aren't designed to keep histories and memories alive.  Oral traditions are used to explain the present, to entertain people, to increase the status of the speaker or a leader.

I'd say the transmission of knowledge is the driving force, but it can certainly be applied to different effects.

What are we to make of say plains native Americans who have horses in their creation myth?  Horse were introduced in the Columbian exchange so such myths can't be very old.  In fact the people of the plains seem to have forgotten their previous horseless life style.

[Duque de Bragança]

"This imaginary story actually took place in XXXX and not in YYYY" is possibly the supidest subgenre of conspiracy theories. See: Atlantis.

Not a conspiracy theory, but for many francophone children, this was an interesting story back in our youth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_31

[viper37]

Can't it also just be people making shit up?  Why can't we allow for the possibility that ancient peoples had vivid imaginations?

It could be. But I think they're more likely embellishments of something that did happen a long time before. These are oral traditions, designed to keep histories and memories alive.

They really aren't designed to keep histories and memories alive.  Oral traditions are used to explain the present, to entertain people, to increase the status of the speaker or a leader.

I'd say the transmission of knowledge is the driving force, but it can certainly be applied to different effects.

What are we to make of say plains native Americans who have horses in their creation myth?  Horse were introduced in the Columbian exchange so such myths can't be very old.  In fact the people of the plains seem to have forgotten their previous horseless life style.

Horses were present in North America before the Europeans.  They just disappeared for 10 000 years.

[crazy canuck]

Paging PDH

What is your view about the transmission of oral histories about events that happened over large time and geographic distances?

[Razgovory]

I think the official answer is that is trustworthy to about 150 years.  I don't give it that much credence.