Video argues Siberian mammoth 'cosmic hunt' variant may date to ~40,000 years

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Key facts

• Using the Mythology and Folklore Database, the presenter says the 'cosmic hunt' motif has 128 catalogued versions; published research places the motif in northern and central Eurasia and the Americas.
• He divides the versions into 'mythemes'—recurring elements such as hunter, animal, attempted killing and transformation into constellations.
• In most versions, the four-star bowl of Ursa Major is the animal and the three-star handle of the Plough/Dipper, including Mizar-Alcor, is the hunter, sometimes accompanied by a dog, spear or cooking pots.
• Some Siberian versions substitute a mammoth for the bear; the video argues this preserves a very old tradition and links its spread to the Americas via Beringia or glacial-maximum migration routes.
• The video argues the myth is more than 25,000 years old and perhaps close to 40,000, using a reconstruction in which Ursa Major lay near the horizon on November 2, 40,000 years ago.
• Explicit star identifications are rare, and the prey changes with the landscape: bear in Greece and North America, deer in Asia and mammoth in Siberia.
• The presenter cites more than 140,000 myths and 1,000-plus cultures and categories; the database's current description says it contains more than 350,000 folklore narratives and indexes folktales using the ATU and Thompson systems.

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