Polyphemus: a Palaeolithic Tale?

Julien d'Huy (1)

1 CEMAf - Centre d'Etudes des Mondes Africains

This paper presents an analysis of 56 variants of European and North American examples of the so-called Polyphemus tale (international tale type ATU 1137) using phylogenetic software according to 190 traits. Discussion addresses a number of points of comparative methodology while considering the historical implications of a relationship between different versions of this tale type recorded in diverse cultures.

Mots clés: folktale; phylogenetic; structure; principal component; Palaeolithic; Sorcier à l'arc musical; Trois Frères; mythology; Bayes; bayesian; Historical-Geographic Method; Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling; NeighborNet; Retention Index; Delta Score; proto-tale; reconstruction; statistics

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire; Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie; Histoire; Méthodes et statistiques

Julien d'Huy. Polyphemus: a Palaeolithic Tale?. The Retrospective Methods Network Newsletter, 2015, 9, pp.43-64. ⟨halshs-01170837⟩