Grandma, what a long history you have!
The origins of “Little Red Riding Hood”
New research suggests the famous children's story
can be traced back to . . .
This piece originally appeared on Pacific Standard.
We all know one fact about Little Red Riding Hood’s family tree: She has—or had—a grandmother. But newly published research suggests her ancestral linage in fact goes way, way back.
Writing in the online journal PLOS One, Durham University anthropologist Jamie Tehrani presents evidence that the popular folk tale appears to share ancient roots with another story still popular in Europe and the Middle East, The Wolf and the Kids.
“This is rather like a biologist showing that humans and other apes share a common ancestor but have evolved into distinct species,” Tehrani told the university’s public affairs office. “The fact that Little Red Riding Hood ’evolved twice’ from the same starting point suggests it holds a powerful appeal that attracts our imaginations.”
“This is rather like a biologist showing that humans and other apes share a common ancestor but have evolved into distinct species,” Tehrani told the university’s public affairs office. “The fact that Little Red Riding Hood ’evolved twice’ from the same starting point suggests it holds a powerful appeal that attracts our imaginations.”
In an attempt to show that one really can trace stories from various cultures to common roots, Tehrani analyzed a series of seemingly related stories to phylogenetic analysis. Developed to trace the relationship between various species, it is used to create a “tree” that traces how, in the course of evolution, certain plants or animals arose from a common progenitor.
