Eurasian back-migration: traces in mythology?
The author examines the world distribution of mythological motifs peculiar for Northeast Africa but absent in other parts of this continent. The corresponding narratives describe the events of the time of creation, objects and beings localized at the ultimate limits of the human world as well as episodes of the journeys of heroes to these limits. The motifs in question are absent in Central Asia and Siberia but found across Western, South and Southeast Asia, in Oceania and across the New World. Considering such distribution, these stories probably appeared at the early stages of the peopling of the oikumene (definitely before the peopling of the New World) and were brought to Africa by the populations engaged into the Eurasian back-migrations that were going since the Terminal Pleistocene and possibly earlier.
Authors
- Yuri Berezkin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6001-7339)
Institutions
- Peter the Great's Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (RU)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Etnograficheskoe obozrenie
- Published
- 2024-11-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.31857/s0869541524030094
- Primary Topic
- Indigenous Studies and Ecology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Smithsonian Institution
- Arctic Institute of North America
- Yale University
- Harvard University
- University of Chicago
- University of Washington
- Alaska Pacific University
- Nanzan University
- Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia
- Lunds Universitet
- Goddard Space Flight Center