geomythology
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210507-the-myths-that-hint-at-past-disasters
It is their job is to study ancient stories once regarded as myths or legends, but which are now seen as possible observations of natural phenomena by pre-literate peoples.
"Geomyths represent the earliest inklings of the scientific impulse", says Adrienne Mayor, folklorist, historian of ancient science and research scholar at Stanford University, California, and author of the important The First Fossil Hunters, "showing that people of antiquity were keen observers and applied the best rational, cohesive thinking of their place and time to explain remarkable natural forces they experienced".