Could have emerged hundreds of thousands of years ago: insights from humanity's oldest myth.

The oldest myth of humanity may be around a hundred thousand years old. There is a possibility that it originated during the time when the future indigenous populations of Greece and Australia lived in Africa.

This refers to the ancient Greek myth of the Pleiades — seven sisters, daughters of Atlas and Pleione. Surprisingly, a nearly identical story exists among Australian Aboriginals, as reported by IFLScience.

In the ancient Greek version, the hunter Orion was so captivated by the beauty of the seven sisters that he began to pursue them. Atlas was unable to protect them as he was busy holding up the sky, so the Pleiades turned to the gods for protection. The god of thunder, Zeus, responded to their pleas and transformed them into stars. For his audacity, he turned Orion into a constellation and placed him near the Pleiades, thus condemning him to an eternal, fruitless chase.

The Pleiades are located in the constellation Taurus and are one of the most recognizable star clusters in the night sky; however, currently, only six can be seen with the naked eye. This is because one of the stars is too close to Atlas, making them appear as one.

However, this was not always the case, and according to scientists' calculations, about 100,000 years ago, the seventh star was clearly visible. This has become the primary argument for the idea that the myth of the Pleiades emerged at that time; otherwise, ancient people could not have known that there were seven stars and not six.

"The similarities between Australian Aboriginal and Greek stories about the Pleiades and Orion include three specific elements: both myths refer to the Pleiades as a group of young women, Orion as a man, and both state that Orion attempts to engage in intimate relations with the Pleiades girls," the article dedicated to the study of the myth states, published in Advancing Cultural Astronomy.

This resemblance also prompted reflection on when the ancestors of Greeks and Indigenous Australians might have last interacted. It turns out that this occurred around 100,000 years ago, when they cohabited in Africa. If the myth originated then, it could also explain why similar stories exist among other peoples in Africa, Asia, Indonesia, and even among Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

"Given that both cultures refer to them as the 'Seven Sisters' and their stories about them are so similar, it seems these tales originated before Australians and Europeans left Africa around 100,000 years ago," the article states.

As previously reported, artificial intelligence helped researchers reconstruct the rules of a board game played by peoples in the territory of present-day Iran about 4600-4700 years ago.