Comment by sundarurfriend

This reminded me of a theory came up with as a teenager, that the Vaanaraas of Ramayana (a group to which the famous "monkey god" Hanuman belongs) may actually be an early hominid that had ape-like features, that lived in parallel with humans in different territory. They were intelligent enough to help the human princes in their quest, which got them a place in their story - a story which went on to become an oral tradition, and got embellished with time to become the Ramayana. If, as proposed here, stories can be orally passed down for tens of thousands of years, that makes it slightly more likely that this outlandish theory actually has some merit to it.