In the northerly hemisphere from October to March , you could look up and see thePleiades , also known as the Seven Sisters . The star bunch is in the constellation of Taurus , and made up of over 1,000 stars , but the brightest of the stars are hot low-spirited lambent wizard which take shape around 100 million years ago .
These maven , like so many others , have myth bind to them byancient culturesaround the world . An intriguing aspect to this is how similar the level are , and why the stories all mention seven sisters , when it is six stars that appear bright to the naked middle .
" In Greek mythology , the Seven Sisters are named after the Pleiades , who were the daughters of Atlas and Pleione . Their father , Atlas , was forced to hold up the sky , and was therefore unable to protect his daughters . But to save them from being outrage by Orion the hunter , Zeus transformed them into star , " a squad that looked into the mystery wrote in a chapter of the 2021 bookAdvancing Cultural Astronomy .
autochthonic Australian version of the story , meanwhile , order similar fib of a hunter or immature man who try and chase the female Pleiades .
" The similarity between the Aboriginal and Hellenic stories of the Pleiades and Orion includes three specific elements : both identify the Pleiades as a group of vernal girls , both identify Orion as male person , and both say that Orion is assay to have sex with the girls in the Pleiades . "
The law of similarity between the two myths is intriguing , as there was almost no contact between European and indigenous Australian cultures from when their common ancestorsleft Africaaround 100000 BCE until 1788 when the British invaded . Similar myth explaining that there are seven sisters but one is missing are found in African , Asian , Indonesian , and aboriginal American cultures .
The team looked for an explanation as to why the myth involved a 7th bright wizard , visible to the naked eye . Running simulation they found that 100,000 years ago , a seventh star – Pleione – would have been visible , but it is now too close to Atlas and so they look like a single superstar to the nude eye .
" When the Australians and Europeans were last together , in 100,000 [ BCE ] , the Pleiades would have appeared as seven headliner , " the squad wrote in their newspaper publisher . " Given that both cultures refer to them as ' Seven babe ' , and that their stories about them are so similar , the grounds seems to underpin the hypothesis that the ' Seven Sisters ' report precede the leaving of the Australians and Europeans from Africa in 100,000 [ BCE ] . "
There is other evidence for Indigenous Australian myth dating back a tenacious , tenacious clock time . One such myth told happen down by the Gunditjmara people of southerly Australia involved a giant that turn away down and wrench into a stack , before spew out molten rock and roll from his mouth . This was of course thought to be telling the story of a volcanic eruption . In 2020 , a team of researchers dated the lava produced by the volcano mean to be the inspiration behind it , and establish that it erupted37,000 years ago .
alas with both myths , we will likely never have it away for sure , but the evidence is intriguing nevertheless .
" Is it possible the tarradiddle of the Seven Sisters and Orion are so old our ancestors were differentiate these stories to each other around campfires in Africa , 100,000 year ago ? " the squad behind the Seven Sisters research concluded in a firearm inThe Conversation . " Could this be the oldest tarradiddle in the earthly concern ? "
