There is an interesting theory about the Pleiades star cluster [1]. The Pleiades are somewhat unique in that they are a prominent feature of the sky and close to the celestial equator. Because of that, they are visible to every population on Earth, and every culture has developed a story around them.
Around 2/3 of cultures have a story in which there are seven things (seven sisters, seven boys, seven chickens, and so forth.). The other 1/3 of cultures have a story in which there are six things. And a surprising number of them have a story in which there were originally seven, but one got lost (like in the Greek myth of Electra).
The interesting thing is that two of the stars in the cluster are quite close together and can't be distinguished by eye. A pair of astronomers looked at the proper motions of the stars in the cluster and figured out that tens of thousands of years ago these two stars were far enough apart that they could have been distinguished by eye. So it seems that early humans recognized the Pleiades as having seven stars and this persisted in the myths of most cultures for tens of thousands of years, even when the seventh star was no longer visible.
This is one of my favorite stories.
One of the best parts is the legend of the seven sisters in Australian aboriginal tradition.
Theory goes that the legend far, far predates first contact with Europeans, so it must have come with the first aboriginal settlers when they sailed from Africa. Which would make it one of (if not the) oldest stories in history.
Considering all Seven Sisters are visible to people with good vision in sufficiently remote areas of Australia today, I don't know how one can draw any conclusions about how old the story is.
Indeed, with sufficiently good conditions and good vision, you can see more than seven. The Seven Sisters are just the brightest of the Pleiades.
Because it's the same seven sisters legend as found in many other places around the world.
Seven sisters chased into the sky by a hunter, and the seventh sister left the sky to marry the hunter.
The aboriginals were isolated from the rest of the world for tens of thousands of years. That their legend is nearly exactly the same as European legends is incredibly unlikely to be coincidence. More likely the legend of the seven sisters is a story that was first told before humans left Africa. All of the Pleiades legends must stem from that original story.
The interesting part isn't that they have a story about the Pleiades, but that it's the exact same story as everyone else. And they've been telling it for tens of thousands of years before ever encountering the Europeans.
I don't think the number 7 is a smoking gun: https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/25611/explain...
It's unremarkable that there are so many legends with 7 whatevers if humans choose it 45% of the time they're asked to guess a random number between 1 and 10. People just really like the number 7.
But the stories are about either 6 or 7 stars, or 7 where and then 1 star disappeared after some time. So it's not only the number 7. And the legends are about the Pleiades specifically. So I see more correlation than coincidence.
Isn't it just as likely that people have a social bias towards 7 in part because of the amount of legends with 7 whatevers?
I am the last person to promote historical criticism over oral and written traditions, but the case is much weaker than what people who repeat this suggest.
1. There's a lot of stars, and they were very important to most every ancient culture on Earth.
2. Our pattern-matching brains are inclined to see vaguely similar things, even across different times and cultures.
3. Even so, there is very little overlap between Aboriginal constellations and other cultures' constellations.
4. The aboriginal Australians do not in fact all recognize the Pleiades. Some don't see it as a group at all. Other aboriginal groups actually note differing numbers of sisters (5-7) and have different stories about them, although the motif of fleeing from different men represented by different astronomical objects is a more common one than not.
The case for this is nice to imagine but very weak. It is not the case that "they" have the "exact same story" at all.
Can confirm: My neighbour said "Pleiades" is a word I made up, and insists the only constellation is the "Big Dipper"
Humans, given the same input (seeing stars), may have a null hypothesis of the same output (story) moreso than expecting the same story to be unlikely random chance or coincidence.
The less special and more similar we are, the more I expect isolated cultures to converge on identical stories.
I think you need exceptionally good eye sight to distinguish more than 6 stars. And it's not surprising that folklore stories originate around what most people's experiences are.
You don’t. You just need dark skies. Careful observers with good eyes see much more than 7.
It's also worth mentioning that, as I alluded to in another comment, myopia is much more common than it was pre-industrially, and it's still rising to what opthamalogists say is "epidemic" proportions. Good eyesight was much more common then.
Sailed from Africa? I always thought they crossed the Torres Strait.
On a related note, something that has always intrigued me is why there is no historical record of Polynesian arrival on the east coast of Australia.
I admit I don't really know. The story I read suggested that settlers sailed from Africa directly. But I don't know what the actual scientific consensus is on this. Really I don't find it particularly interesting as it's mostly guesswork about something 65000 years ago
Genome sequencing of ancient human bones has revealed a ton of interesting evidence about ancient human migration patterns! See the book Who We Are and How We Got Here
Although I like the idea, there's no reason to posit the preservation of the myth of a lost star for tens of thousands of years. People can still see all Seven Sisters under the right conditions, and the right conditions were probably much more prevalent back before the insane degree of light and air pollution that exists today.
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/many-pleiades-can...
Would this have been true in a society without optics and therefore corrective lenses?
When I was young, I was told a story about how native tribes used the star as a vision test for warriors. Only people with excellent vision could discern the second star.
No idea if there's any truth in the story, but I wouldn't be surprised
You're probably thinking of Mizar and Alcor, which are at the middle of the handle of the Big Dipper. This was used as a vision test in ancient times and in the middle ages.
A fun fact is that it is actually six stars. Alcor is a binary star system and Mizar is a quadruple star system.
That might be it. I was probably 10 at the time so I don't remember the details
Yes, nearsightedness is much worse in modern times. Many less people needed corrective lenses, even as they got older.
That's a cute idea, but it's extremely unlikely to be true. If nothing else, the human fascination with 7 is a much more likely explanation, especially since 6 is nowhere near as important a number in this way (1,2,3 and 7 are much more common in myths and fairytales).
Australian natives have stories than originate over 10000 years ago that have been proven to be factual.
That's still 90,000 years younger than the supposed story of the 7 Pleiades.
Also consider that no myths survived of much more interesting and recent astronomical phenomena, like the supernova that was visible for a few weeks even in full daylight [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054].
Humans have made stories about the stars for as long as there have been humans. Why do you think this is unreasonable?
It’s not unreasonable per se but seems a weak hypothesis without more supporting evidence.
I don't know. When I look at Pleiades I can see how you could see 5 (the brightest ones) or 8-9 (the best brightest ones), but not 6 or 7.
Are you looking at pictures, or actually in the sky with naked eyes?
In the sky. I thought it was well known that whatever number of stars you can see in Pleiades it probably isn't 7. I can see 5 with my eyes and more like 10 with binoculars.