It may be that there are only so many basic stories. It makes sense that very old books would contain them. All the archetypal story types can be found in Greek

It may be that there are only so many basic stories. It makes sense that very old books would contain them. All the archetypal story types can be found in Greek literature. I suppose it isn’t a limit of creativity that stops us creating utterly new stories, as much as that there aren’t really any completely new ones to be told.