"The 'common element' in mythology is, of course, the human psyche, which is a function of the human body ...
"Myth, like dream, is an expression of the human imagination thus
grounded in the realities of the psyche and, like dream, reflecting
equally the influences of a specific social environment (nomadic
hunting-and-gathering tribe; settled agricultural sib, city state, or
nation; vagrant desert horde; or militaristic empire), which, in turn,
is linked to a landscape.
"The common ground, or element, of
all mythology is consequently the biology of Homo sapiens,
whereas the differentiating factors are (1) geography and (2) the
cultural stage horizon. For it is a fact that every mythological system
has taken shape within a given geographical horizon, conditioned not
only by the landscape from which its imagery is derived, but also by the
limits of the body of information according to which all appearances in
that only known world are interpreted."
Joseph Campbell, Historical Atlas of World Mythology, Volume II: The Way of the Seeded Earth--Part 1: The Sacrifice, p. 29
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