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Comment by tombh | Hacker News Reader

I was surprised they didn't mention the Pleiades constellation in the Star Stories section. Today, only 6 stars can be seen with the naked eye in the constellation. However, both European and Aboriginal traditions describe them as "seven sisters". It could of course be coincidence, but considering the fact that astronomical extrapolation calculates the movement of the stars to indeed have once been visible as seven, it might actually be evidence of a shared story. The maths puts the last period of the Pleiades appearing as seven, at around 100,000 years ago.

The Pleiades Folklore Wikipedia page has loads of interesting general info about the constellation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_in_folklore_and_liter...

And Youtuber Crecganford has a video with well-sourced academic references exploring the idea that The Seven Sisters is humanity's oldest story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qyjKND3dAE

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From the Wikipedia on the Pleiades:

> Its light is dominated by young, hot blue stars, up to 14 of which can be seen with the naked eye depending on local observing conditions and visual acuity of the observer.

Not sure where you got this claim that there are only 6 visible stars

There's been a surprising amount of academic work on this. Crecganford's video lists some 13 sources, the one I think he references the most is: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234273399_Emu_Dream...

There are seven members with magnitude +5 or brighter. Pleione is close to Atlas (+3.6), making it difficult to distinguish with the naked eye.

Maybe they had better vision. too.

I heard a story about this, but I can't find it on the internet and don't remember the details. Something about someone giving an elder aboriginal glasses, and him saying like "it's better, but I still can't see (thing he used to see, which IIRC was a star) like it used to.

Not all factors causing poor vision in the elderly can be solved with a pair of glasses

Interestingly, several cultures actually used the number of stars a person could see in the Pleiades as a vision test.

Or two stars in Ursa major.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18929764/

They sure had less light pollution!

> The maths puts the last period of the Pleiades appearing as seven, at around 100,000 years ago.

So, I'm not entirely sure I follow you, but this is way way before any people were in Tasmania, or even any real evidenced occupation in the southern hemisphere outside Africa.

Are you suggesting the maths is suspect (?!), or that they should have included traditions that can't at all be verified?

The article suggests that a 12 ky old oral tradition might be the oldest.

tombh’s comment is that there could be an oral tradition almost an order of magnitude older, or more. I think it’s relevant.

related, there's a North American legend about a giant whose nose was a long snake

> On the North American mainland, populations of mammoths and mastodons were still living as recently as 12,000 years ago; all were gone 1,000 or so years later.

I don't think they're suggesting that this is specific to Tasmania.

The suggestion is the story is from a common ancestor when humans were still in Africa.

Could be the real life equivalent of a part of the plot of the Three-Body Problem (I've only seen the Tencent series). One of the mechanisms used in the exposition of this problem is a VR game within an planet with alien physics due to the orbital environment surrounding it, and the game's goal of understanding the physics and observed patterns. I think that's the best I can obfuscate it without fully spoiling the plot.

Oh they did adapt it to screens? How is it?

The show is centered around hard science so it can be a little difficult to follow for some, the series is around 30 episodes and it took a while to make some decent progress in the plot. I like it overall, but have a feeling that the Netflix version may not be able to match it, especially when trying to "westernize" it.

Oh there's a Netflix version coming out too? Splendid.

Not as good as the books, a bit too Chinese drama ish, but still very watchable

Also the Dogon Tribe

> considering the fact that astronomical extrapolation calculates the movement of the stars to indeed have once been visible as seven, it might actually be evidence of a shared story.

That can't be evidence of a shared story, because people are capable of viewing the sky independently.

The fact that both traditions call them "sisters" might be such evidence, but (1) that has nothing to do with how many of them there are; and (2) it is evidence so weak that it's not worth considering at all.

It's more than that. The story of the seven sisters is in many different cultures and the story is usually the same: seven sisters chased into the sky by a hunter. Most also have a story about the seventh sister leaving the sky or simply fading away.

The real evidence is that the same story exists in aboriginal Australian culture, and has been since well before first contact with Europeans. Most likely the story was brought with the aboriginals when they left Africa and has been told ever since.

Seriously, read the Wikipedia article or watch a video about it. It's an extremely interesting topic, and learning about it is a lot more fun than just assuming it's wrong and everyone is stupid.

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