Here we might think of the modern German word geschichte, which is both the word for the branch of knowledge that seeks to make sense of the past, history with a capital H, but also the word for stories, narratives. As some of you might know, German is the language of the Brothers Grimm, whose collection of fairy tales you've probably encountered in English at some point. Jacob Grimm was also the first editor of The Charms you read, whose views on the rich polytheism of our ancestors I just quoted. So he figures in the German tradition for both kinds of geschichte - geschichte as history proper and geschichten, stories. But our understanding of history so far presupposes something. The records here are all based on writing. When did this happen and why? Is there history before writing? Stay tuned.