Why do similar stories appear in unrelated cultures worldwide?

The answer

Folklorists and anthropologists have documented striking parallels in stories across unrelated cultures. The 'hero's journey' pattern identified by Joseph Campbell, involving a call to adventure, trials, transformation, and return, appears in mythologies from ancient Greece to sub-Saharan Africa to pre-Columbian Americas. Trickster figures (Coyote, Anansi, Loki, Sun Wukong) appear globally. Scholars debate whether these parallels reflect shared cognitive architecture (Carl Jung's collective unconscious), common human experiences (floods, eclipses, death), cultural diffusion through ancient contact, or descent from stories told by our common ancestors in Africa. Phylogenetic analysis of folktales suggests some stories, like 'The Smith and the Devil,' may be over 6,000 years old, predating the Indo-European language split.