I'm not bringing any sources but you may be underestimating some of this: > very few people spoke more than one language I have heard that ancient peoples mig

I'm not bringing any sources but you may be underestimating some of this: > very few people spoke more than one language I have heard that ancient peoples might have been quite multi-lingual because there was less homogeneity and more linguistic diversity so that e.g. the villages in the next valley over would be speaking something quite different so you couldn't avoid be quite adept. > never traveled more than 20 miles from where they were born Along similar lines, I have heard that with smaller communities, there is more natural drive/incentive to move around to find unreleated partners. I am entertained by the idea that familial conflict is an evolved mechanism to promote the... uh... spread of seed. People in antiquity really motored around way beyond our expectations. These folk would travel for years for education, trade, war, curiosity and pilgrimage. > yet the earliest surviving documents on which the gospels were based were in other languages and originated in distant lands And thus, this becomes more of an example case of historical humanity's multi-lingual peripatetic nature rather than an exception. Sure, there will have been plenty of homebodies but be wary of underestimation. They currently think stone-age folk transported the Stonehenge altar 434 miles from Scotland and hell, I still find it mind-boggling that all sorts of animals from tiny birds to eels travel 1000s of miles each year just for the weather yet I barely leave the house :)