Antiquity can't be substitute of truth. Granted many of these claims may have strong correlations but I also hear a lot of nonsense that is as old as the civilization itself. Witchcraft is only one of them.
The 50,000 year deep indigenous knowledge being discussed there isn't magical sky friends, it's deep ecological knowledge about plants, animals, and where to find food and water where no outsiders would think to look.
Exactly. Such as how the aboriginal Australians know how to do controlled burns to keep megafires from happening. The government is starting to listen to them on how to do that.
the story of the sun being a chariot driven by a god (i.e. a humanoid) must have been a story which encoded useful information, perhaps things like "every morning, get up and do your job" and "here's what happens when you show fiery temperment", etc.
you can't convincingly tell the scientific story of the advantages of adaptive evolution without realizing that stories told over and over again must have been adaptions, they're too much of a waste otherwise. We like listening to stories. Why? you said it best.
https://theconversation.com/first-peoples-knowledge-of-myste...