When “primitive” is defined upon a linear conception of time (primitive = past  civilized = present) and on diet’s data (primitive = pre-agrarian  present = agriculture), is this kind of lecture, however well applied in a number of studies, really acceptable? This question must particularly be raised in the case of some myths of origins in Greek archaic thought. Two Boeotian traditions, that of autochthony in Thebes and the Hesiodic myth of the five races, push forward another idea of primitive, focused on a social and political discourse : escaping the temporal and modern representations of progress, primitive’s significance is based upon ancient ideas implying behavior and education. This study propose an introduction on a wider set of questions concerning Boeotian archaic poetry and society, approached from a historian perspective.