Abstract
The study of stone figures and of drawings, made on cave walls with ochre and charcoal, shows convincingly that tens of thousands of years ago humans not only collected information about animals and birds, about properties of grasses and fruits, but also tried to establish regularities in the world around them and to understand its origins. This is how the oldest myths arose: myths about the “Great Original Mother,” the common ancestor of humans and animals, and about totems — protectors of tribes. Ancient humans attributed menacing natural phenomena — thunder, lightning, earthquakes and hurricanes — to the influence of otherworldly forces.
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Vilenkin, N.Y. (1995). Infinity and the universe. In: In Search of Infinity. Birkhäuser, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-0837-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-0837-2_1
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