When They Severed Earth from Sky

1 About this book

When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth is a 2004 work by Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber that examines how preliterate societies encoded information about natural events and observations into mythological narratives.

Published by Princeton University Press, the book presents a theoretical framework of cognitive principles governing how myths develop, transmit, and degrade over time. The authors argue that many myths preserve accurate information about geological and astronomical phenomena, functioning as "time capsules" that transmit crucial survival knowledge across millennia before the invention of writing.

The work analyzes mythological narratives from various cultures, particularly examining cases where independent geological or archaeological evidence can verify the historical events potentially encoded in myths.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Good for readers who want: mythology, psychology, and a classic.

• Mythology
• Sociology
• Social science
• Psychology
• Anthropology
• Classics
• Cognitive Science
• Folklore & Mythology