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Would be cool if they provided other examples. The Aboriginal's of australia have the strongest and oldest oral tradition of any culture that I am aware of, so it would be nice to see some other, less obvious, examples.
Going to go out on a personal opinion limb here, but I think we dismiss far too much in archaeology and ancient recorded history, even with the evidence all around us. I predict one day there will be a great revival in archaeology as we start to cast off our erroneous assumptions about native peoples stories of their history. A few Examples that have really stuck in my mind: The recorded history of the Egyptians says…
https://ourfakehistory.com/index.php/season-2/
The upshot is that his account does not match up with any real world location, unless you are willing to engage in cherry-picking and an extremely generous interpretation of various things, and there is no credible explain of how he alone could have gained such detailed knowledge of a civilisation that existed thousands of years before his birth. One which no other historical writer mentioned.
In reality, Plato's description of "Atlantis" was considered as plainly allegorical by his contemporaries and subsequent scholars. A situation that continued for hundreds of years, and only began to change in the relatively recent past, with the rise of pseudo-history and conspiracy theorists.
It always amazes me why historians and researchers start with the assumption that any tale from the past is fanciful until proven otherwise. We have little to no proof that our very distant ancestors sat around making up stories for the fun of it and then passing them on to future generations, when they'd surely be more likely to pass on useful information that keeps the tribe alive. Yes there will be embelishments,…
What I was taught is that ancient peoples did not look at history the way we look at it. When I open a book by a modern historian, I assume the book will be about things that actually happened, how they actually happened, why they actually happened, the correct order in which they actually happened, etc. I expect the historian will tell me when there is ambiguity or uncertainty. Ancient historians would think this is…
I can also think of a concrete example from when I was in middle school : Shay's Rebellion was presented in history class in a completely different light to the way I've come to understand it from independent reading [i.e., in school we learned that Shay's guys were rogues as opposed to folks [generally Rev. War vets] unjustly dispossessed by (among other economic factors) ill effects of speculative investment in government assets and misguided fiscal + tax policy]
It always amazes me why historians and researchers start with the assumption that any tale from the past is fanciful until proven otherwise. We have little to no proof that our very distant ancestors sat around making up stories for the fun of it and then passing them on to future generations, when they'd surely be more likely to pass on useful information that keeps the tribe alive. Yes there will be embelishments,…
Unless we think gods, talking animals, totems, spirits are real we've learned that many stories are embellished. Another way to look at it that boring factual recipes and rules were not fun to tell and remember but the ones with drama and extra flourish were. So those are the ones that survived better.
It always amazes me why historians and researchers start with the assumption that any tale from the past is fanciful until proven otherwise. We have little to no proof that our very distant ancestors sat around making up stories for the fun of it and then passing them on to future generations, when they'd surely be more likely to pass on useful information that keeps the tribe alive. Yes there will be embelishments,…
What I was taught is that ancient peoples did not look at history the way we look at it. When I open a book by a modern historian, I assume the book will be about things that actually happened, how they actually happened, why they actually happened, the correct order in which they actually happened, etc. I expect the historian will tell me when there is ambiguity or uncertainty. Ancient historians would think this is…
The difference being that far more in the past where there was an inherent interest in preserving the accuracy of certain classes of events where self-interests demanded and required accuracy, today what you think you are reading, whose accuracy is assumed by proximity to criteria that are surely far more accurate (i.e., order of things that were not fantasy), there is an inherent incentive to distort the perspective because those who record and disseminate the "history" are far less likely also self-interested in actual accuracy of the history. It's essentially the "to the winners go the myths and legends" problem. The accuracy of events actually goes down in many different ways when you start muddling interests as modern society has. Do you ever think, e.g., that we would have written a history in which the enemy is the "good guy", but we just happened to win the war? Reality though is that the history you read assumes an accuracy through formality or deliberateness ... it is the same reason that so many people are conned into thinking that NPR and the mainstream media are somehow inherently more accurate or right, let alone just not devious, because they talk in a deliberate and calm and precise tone.
In many ways the very precision the western world has obsessed about is contributing to the very corruption of its soul because we are obsessed with procedure and process to such a blinding and OCD degree that we miss the underlying message and lessons. It's a rather mentally unhealthy mentality that insists on the "accuracy" that "not all of those who want to conquer us have killed us yet...", thus, post hoc ergo propter hoc, "...our enemies are also just like us because they say they are and we believe their words over their actions". It's an odd obsession with formality and process that has totally negated spirit and emotion and just plain and simply most fundamental and instinctual self-preservation.
So here we are and instead of having learned a history that makes us realize that "socialism" is not about being social and friendly, and communism is not about being a community even if specific details are not perfectly captured; we say, "well, since they have not been done properly we will give it all another go."
It always amazes me why historians and researchers start with the assumption that any tale from the past is fanciful until proven otherwise. We have little to no proof that our very distant ancestors sat around making up stories for the fun of it and then passing them on to future generations, when they'd surely be more likely to pass on useful information that keeps the tribe alive. Yes there will be embelishments,…
What I was taught is that ancient peoples did not look at history the way we look at it. When I open a book by a modern historian, I assume the book will be about things that actually happened, how they actually happened, why they actually happened, the correct order in which they actually happened, etc. I expect the historian will tell me when there is ambiguity or uncertainty. Ancient historians would think this is…
It always amazes me why historians and researchers start with the assumption that any tale from the past is fanciful until proven otherwise. We have little to no proof that our very distant ancestors sat around making up stories for the fun of it and then passing them on to future generations, when they'd surely be more likely to pass on useful information that keeps the tribe alive. Yes there will be embelishments,…
Unless we think gods, talking animals, totems, spirits are real we've learned that many stories are embellished. Another way to look at it that boring factual recipes and rules were not fun to tell and remember but the ones with drama and extra flourish were. So those are the ones that survived better.
Animals do speak, actually. This is something you might not have come to understand or accept yet, but science is no longer able to assert that animals are not communicating in distinct languages. Everywhere we have studied, we have found one.
So the ability to understand an animal and learn its language is absolutely not far fetched, except to the fragile conception of human history that is the Western mind.
That said, if we don't have a reliable way of picking these facts out from the rest of the oral tradition, how useful is this knowledge? Its not like we can go through the rest of the dreamtime corpus and select out other long-lost facts.
Which also raises the question - given a big enough oral tradition (assuming for the moment the stories are ALL made up) - what are the chances of finding stories that inadvertently line up with reality?
Going to go out on a personal opinion limb here, but I think we dismiss far too much in archaeology and ancient recorded history, even with the evidence all around us. I predict one day there will be a great revival in archaeology as we start to cast off our erroneous assumptions about native peoples stories of their history. A few Examples that have really stuck in my mind: The recorded history of the Egyptians says…
Compare contrast Lucian of Samosata's "True History", sometimes considered the prototypical sci-fi story, describes a lunar voyage borne on wind and water (I am reminded of a taller ladder to the moon),
"a waterspout suddenly came upon us, which swept the ship round and up to a height of some three hundred and fifty miles above the earth. She did not fall back into the sea, but was suspended aloft, and at the same time carried along by a wind which struck and filled the sails...it was an island with air for sea, glistening, spherical, and bathed in light"[2]
It always amazes me why historians and researchers start with the assumption that any tale from the past is fanciful until proven otherwise. We have little to no proof that our very distant ancestors sat around making up stories for the fun of it and then passing them on to future generations, when they'd surely be more likely to pass on useful information that keeps the tribe alive. Yes there will be embelishments,…
Because most tales humans produce right now are fanciful. People in the past told stories for many reasons, survival being one, fun another, their political conflict being yet another. But also, I am quite confident contemporary researches don't take old tales as total lies, but neither as total truth.
So the issue is that we no longer communicate our history through stories told out loud and therefore decided not to be able to conceive of any culture actually doing the same.