Monochrome_Fox_ t1_ixij736 wrote
It's kinda interesting how indigenous folklore the world around so often holds memory of distant historical events and yet whenever those events are confirmed it's still surprising somehow. We didn't invent remembering history we just started to write it down better
Pornalt190425 t1_ixj8fef wrote
The "problem" with objectively believing folklore or oral traditions without any other evidence is that they are folklore and oral traditions. A story that gets retold thousands or tens of thousands of times is going to change slightly with each retelling. The broad strokes will obviously stay the same but the finer details may blur and bleed into each other. Even ancient written records will have this problem to a degree from all the copying, translating, recopying and retranslating (not to say anything about the biases of the storytellers either).
Ancient traditions and stories are certainly good jumping off points for investigation since there is likely some event or place they are building off of. Finding other evidence can start to untangle what makes a good story and what we can say with good certainty happend or existed.
Take the Illiad as an example. The Trojan war makes for a great story but most of it is likely fictionalized. There probably wasn't a Helen and the Greeks probably didn't launch a thousand ships to rescue her. But there's likely a good chance it preserves a memory of Greeks coming into conflict with Anatolian peoples in that region. Finding evidence of a city that is likely Troy in the modern era gives more credence to parts of the story having kernels of fact dispersed into the mythology.
Painting_Agency t1_ixja9gh wrote
> The "problem" with objectively believing folklore or oral traditions without any other evidence is that they are folklore and oral traditions.
They're not believed without any other evidence. Traditional stories can be used for "hypothesis generating"; suggesting what we can then examine using other methods.
> A story that gets retold thousands or tens of thousands of times is going to change slightly with each retelling
The link suggests that Aboriginal storytellers often have some kind of familial oath or expectation to maintain accuracy in the oral tradition. If they're keeping references to islands that no longer exist, rather than adjusting stories to fit their absence, then there must be a belief that that information is important to maintain. Even if it has no practical purpose.
Pornalt190425 t1_ixjbxca wrote
To your first point, I alluded to that in the 2nd paragraph. To your second point, which link are you referring to? I did not see anything in the article about aboriginal storytellers unless I missed it
Painting_Agency t1_ixjmeoc wrote
Sorry, for some reason I thought this was linked to in the comment we were threading.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-sea-rise-tale-told-accurately-for-10-000-years/
> How could such tales survive hundreds of generations without being written down?
> “There are aspects of storytelling in Australia that involved kin-based responsibilities to tell the stories accurately,” Reid said. That rigor provided “cross-generational scaffolding” that “can keep a story true.”
Pornalt190425 t1_ixkaoi4 wrote
Thanks for sharing that it was an interesting read! I guess with the right cultural carrots and sticks you could trust the story is being more accurately carried down the generations
Painting_Agency t1_ixkhyv4 wrote
The Norse skalds recited their sagas as verse so it was easier to remember them verbatim... But they weren't maintaining that oral tradition checksum for 400 generations 😮
eternalmunchies t1_ixk3za7 wrote
Also, African griots have a similar work ethic.
eternalmunchies t1_ixk3sjr wrote
>The "problem" with objectively believing folklore or oral traditions without any other evidence is that they are folklore and oral traditions.
>Ancient written records will have this problem to a degree from all the copying, translating, recopying and retranslating (not to say anything about the biases of the storytellers either).
So it's clearly not about oral vs written. No history-keeping is positively objective. It just happen that our historiographic tradition emphasizes writing and has an elitist take on oral traditions (normally identified with the "other cultures", or the iliterate poor classes).
Pornalt190425 t1_ixkcjx8 wrote
I dont wont discount cultural elitism taking play to some degree in the general perception between the two
But that being said written records do allow the records to survive and be examined a bit easier. For exame you could start checking the historicity of something by seeing if someone else wrote about it. If say the Babylonian, Egyptian and Asyrian records all agree that an event went a certain way (especially when those areas were independent from each other. Seperate kingdoms dont have as much of a vested interest in telling the same story) all record an event the same way from roughly the same time period there's more credence to the telling. 3 seperate oral records are less likely (in general) to have come down through the ages than cuneiform tablets.
You could also potentially trace translations and versions of the story through time to see how it morphed and evolved in the retellings or when being translated. That would be something like comparing the dead sea scolls to a modern old testament/Torah. How much it varies overtime and what varies over time can give hints and clues.
Maleficent_Moose_802 t1_ixksjjn wrote
There is written record of Yamatai. We know it was somewhere near Japan, but We still don’t know where it exactly located.
Shadows802 t1_ixjklch wrote
I mean a prince stealing the wife of the King which leads to a seige lasting several years, isn't that improbable. Definitely more plausible than Merlin and the Dragon Eggs.
TheCHERRY_Business t1_ixizolo wrote
I will say there's a surprisingly different reaction from news such as this, vs the general acceptance of the theories presented in the show Ancient Apocalypse on Netflix
You_called_moi t1_ixj2xav wrote
The difference is evidence. When you can present something like an old map that shows the location of islands that once existed, it's impact is rather different to saying 'archaeologists HATE ME for saying this, but ancient people came from overseas to teach the indigenous people how to build pyramids- source: trust me, I'm not an expert, I'm a journalist'. If he had solid evidence to prove his claims, then that would be taken a lot more seriously, I'm sure.
Skynetiskumming t1_ixjjd07 wrote
I certainly didn't enjoy the way Ancient Apocalypse dramatized the content and turned it into "the world hates me" paradigm. To the presenter's credit though, the Antarctic coastline and the Bimini Road does make one wonder how they ended up on an ancient map. Much like the discovery published here.
hawktron t1_ixjt7km wrote
It’s not the Antarctic coast line though. It clearly fits the South American coast line / islands just oriented wrong.
[deleted] t1_ixjeohh wrote
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[deleted] t1_ixizta0 wrote
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