Different schools of thought have approached the subject of Proto-Indo-European mythology from different angles. This method is known as the comparative method. Nonetheless, scholars of comparative mythology have attempted to reconstruct aspects of Proto-Indo-European mythology based on the existence of similarities among the deities, religious practices, and myths of various Indo-European peoples. The mythology of the Proto-Indo-Europeans is not directly attested and it is difficult to match their language to archaeological findings related to any specific culture from the Chalcolithic.
Methods of reconstruction Schools of thought The main mythologies used in comparative reconstruction are Vedic, Roman, and Norse, often supported with evidence from the Baltic, Celtic, Greek, Slavic, Hittite, Armenian, and Albanian traditions as well. Various schools of thought exist regarding the interpretation that should be made of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology. Some myths are also securely dated to Proto-Indo-European times, since they feature both linguistic and thematic evidence of an inheritance: a story involving a mythical figure associated with thunder and slaying a multi-headed serpent to release torrents of water that had previously been pent up a creation myth involving two brothers, one of whom sacrifices the other in order to create the world and probably the belief that the Otherworld was guarded by a watchdog and could only be reached by crossing a river.
Some deities, like the weather god Perkʷunos or the herding-god Péh₂usōn, are only attested in a limited number of traditions–Western (European) and Graeco-Aryan, respectively–and could therefore represent late additions that did not spread throughout the various Indo-European dialects. The Proto-Indo-European pantheon includes a number of securely reconstructed deities such as Dyḗus Pḥₐtḗr, the daylight-sky god his consort Dʰéǵʰōm, the earth mother his daughter Hₐéusōs, the dawn goddess his sons the Divine Twins and Seh₂ul, a solar goddess. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested, since Proto-Indo-European-speakers lived In pre-literate societies, they have been reconstructed by scholars of comparative mythology from inherited similarities among Indo-European languages, which led them to the assumption that parts of their original belief systems were also preserved in the daughter traditions.
Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language.
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