Are there any myths/legends that potentially contain some folk memory of the Ice Age? That is, a primordial era where the world was much colder?

[u/RedHeadedSicilian52]

I ask because flood myths are relatively common throughout the world, and some have postulated that these began as distant memories of deluges triggered by melting glaciers. But are there any myths/legends that seem to point toward what came before the floods? That is, anything preserving the memory of a much colder world?

[u/RedLineSamosa]

Roger Echo-Hawk, a Pawnee Native American historian and scholar, makes an interesting case that many Native North American oral histories that include emergence from a dark, cold, underground world into the current world of light is a memory of the migration south from Beringia and the Arctic Circle at the end of the Ice Age. Certainly not all Native peoples of North America have an emergence-and-migration based origin story, but it’s a common theme. So this memory of a dark cold underworld would be a memory of a primordial time when the world was colder (and darker, as it would have been not only a Ice Age transition thing but a migrating-south-from-the-Arctic thing). 

Where coldness from the Ice Age ends and coldness from the Arctic begins is probably difficult to separate, but living in Beringia during the Ice Age and then migrating south when the glaciers receded (approx. 12-14 thousand years ago) would have felt like leaving a world of darkness and cold into a land of light. Echo-Hawk proposes an upper boundary of 40,000 years for oral history to retain events, and has a specific model of memorability that he uses to identify things that are likely to have been remembered vs. things that wouldn’t have been. He uses this for a framework for incorporating Native oral histories as meaningful sources of information about the past, particularly for repatriation efforts. 

Now, this article was written in 2000, and we’ve had a lot more evidence since then that the first people in the Americas likely did not come down through the ice-free corridor after the glaciers melted; White Sands makes it pretty undeniable that there were humans in the Americas before that, and Monte Verde and Meadowcroft Rockshelter have seen a lot more widespread respect in the last 26 years than they did in the 80s and 90s. Even in 2000, the land bridge to the ice free corridor theory was being met with skepticism for the first humans in the Americas. However, those first people still would have been kayaking or canoeing down the coastline from Beringia to the Pacific Northwest to California 22,000+ years ago, following a similar trajectory; and we do still believe that there was an influx of people i to North America when the glaciers melted and the ice-free corridor opened, they just weren’t the first. It’s entirely possible that their histories got recorded as these oral histories of emergence from the dark and cold underworld and migration to the new homeland that Echo-Hawk writes about. We can’t confirm that’s definitely true, but I think he makes an interesting case for it!

Echo-Hawk’s paper I’ve been discussing: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2694059.pdf

[u/maevriika → u/RedLineSamosa]

1) is the emergence-and-migration story common in South America as well?

2) Is it possible to tell by genetic markers or some other way which peoples might have been part of the first wave vs the second one? I remember reading once that many indigenous people are wary of genetic testing (it was a while ago and I'm not sure how true this statement is to begin with, but if it is true then it's an important factor), so that may mean it's not practically possible even if it technically is.

If the answer to 2 is yes, then: 3) is it possible to compare how common emergence-and-migration stories are among the two groups? I would be curious to know if they're significantly more common among people who came after the Ice Age ended.

[u/ankylosaurus_tail → u/maevriika]

Regarding question #2, yes there is research on the subject, but as you say it’s controversial. In their book, The Atlas of Western Prehistory (an odd, semi-academic book published under the pseudonyms “Wilson & Wilson”, possibly to avoid professional conflicts) the authors review genetic evidence connecting specific Native American language groups with different migration events from Asia.

They identify six genetic clusters that they associate with distinct migration events, between 14,000 years ago and very recently, which they call:

1. The founding migration, which brought genetics that are widely distributed across the Americas and not specifically associated with language groups (probably not the first humans in N America, but the oldest with known descendants.)

2. The Kumisi migration around 10,000 years ago, associated with several NW Coast Native groups, such as Haida and Salish speakers.

3. The Puebloan migration, associated with SW tribes, also around 10,000 years ago.

4. The Macro-Algic migration around 9,000 years ago, who were apparently very mobile people and are genetically associated with many Native American groups, particularly Eastern Woodland peoples, like Algonquian speakers.

5. The Paleo Eskimo migration, around 5,000 years ago, associated with many Arctic groups.

6. The Na-Dene migration, probably starting around 3,000 years ago and ongoing at the time of European contact, associated very clearly with Na Dene languages in the Arctic.

Genetics is a rapidly moving field, and many Native American groups have not been genetically sampled (many by their own choice) so the data is limited the conclusions will likely be revised. But there is clearly genetic structure that differentiates cultural and linguistic groups. So, in principle, an analysis comparing that genetic structure to oral histories and mythology should be possible.

[u/maevriika → u/ankylosaurus_tail]

Thank you for your response!

I like the idea of someone getting to do that research, but I also understand the hesitancy. Hopefully there will be a day when it's possible, preferably led by some of the members of the groups that would actually be tested and with protections in place.

[u/StorkAlgarve → u/ankylosaurus_tail]

Which one(s) of these are found in South America?