{
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    "generated": "2026-09-12T06:52:38Z",
    "language": "en",
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  },
  "data": {
  "id": "origins-of-the-worlds-mythologies",
  "title": "The Origins of the World's Mythologies",
  "description": {
    "en": "E. J. Michael Witzel's 2012 Oxford University Press study attempts the broadest contemporary comparative-mythological reconstruction: a putative 'Laurasian' mythological substrate underlying the great traditions of Eurasia and the Americas, contrasted with an older 'Gondwanan' substrate in sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, and Papua New Guinea. Witzel's reconstruction is controversial in mainstream comparative-religion scholarship but offers the most systematic recent account of the structural parallels between the global flood, golden-age, and lost-civilization traditions. The work is a principal mainstream reference point for the structural-parallel observations that underwrite alternative reconstructions of pre-Flood civilization."
  },
  "authored_by": [
    "E. J. Michael Witzel"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Comparative Mythology",
    "Flood",
    "Antediluvian",
    "Laurasian Hypothesis"
  ],
  "stance": "neutral",
  "source_type": "academic_monograph",
  "publish_date": "2012",
  "source_family": "neo_euhemerism",
  "relation_to_wheel": "scholarly_context",
  "licensing_status": "licensed",
  "follow_url": "https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-origins-of-the-worlds-mythologies-9780199812851"
},
  "links": {
    "self": "/v1/sources/origins-of-the-worlds-mythologies/",
    "canonical_html": "https://www.wheelofheaven.world/sources/origins-of-the-worlds-mythologies/",
    "index": "/v1/sources/",
    "schema": "/v1/schema/source/",
    "traditions": "/v1/sources/traditions/"
  }
}