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The phrase (as) old as the hills (also older than the hills) means: exceedingly or immeasurably old.

This phrase occurs, for example, in the following from Why is the X factor reject a Loos woman but Becks shines as the golden boy?, by Siobhan O’Connor, published in the Sunday Independent (Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland) of Sunday 4^th June 2006 [page 22, column 1]:

It’s as old as the hills, but when it comes to being unfaithful, women still get the raw deal.
Yeah, we can all go around saying hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but sleep with another woman’s man and you’re labelled a scarlet lady, even in 2006.
However, by and large the man walks free, unscathed. Time and again, if a man does the dirt his missus will take him back and the “other woman” may as well be a harlot.

The origin of the phrase (as) old as the hills (also older than the hills) is unknown.

It has been suggested (for example by the Oxford English Dictionary, June 2026, s.v. old) that this phrase perhaps alludes to the Book of Job, 15:7, which is as follows in the King James Bible (1611):

15:1 Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said,
[…]
15:7 Art thou the first man that was borne? or wast thou made before the hilles?
15:8 Hast thou heard the secret of God? and doest thou restraine wisedome to thy selfe?
15:9 What knowest thou that we know not? what vnderstandest thou, which is not in vs?

There is, however, no evidence that the phrase (as) old as the hills alludes to the Book of Job.

The first two figurative uses of the phrase (as) old as the hills that I have found are associated with Scotland (cf., below, quotations 2 & 3) but this is not sufficient to prove that this phrase originated in reference to Scotland.

In my opinion, the phrase (as) old as the hills may simply allude to the fact that a hill is a permanent feature of a particular landscape.

These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the phrase (as) old as the hills (also older than the hills) that I have found:

1-: From A Defence of the Antient Historians: With a particular Application of it to the History of Ireland and Great-Britain, and other Northern Nations. In a Dialogue between a Protestant and a Papist, and Englishman and an Irishman (Dublin: Printed by S. Powell, for John Smith and William Bruce, 1734), by Francis Hutchinson (1660-1739) [page 69]—here, however, the phrase as old as the hills is apparently used literally:

As Sea and Land are both of an Age, and as Vales are as old as the Hills, so Loughs and Rivers must be as old as they.

2-: From The British Lion Rous’d; Or Acts of the British Worthies, a Poem in Nine Books (Manchester: Printed by R. Whitworth, 1762), by James Ogden (1718-1802) [Book 6, page 146]—the following is about a Scottish clan:

Form’d to endure fatigue, the warrior Clan,
Down through the course of time transmits his name
Old as the hills, and branching like the stream.

3-: From Observations made during a Tour through Parts of England, Scotland, and Wales. In a Series of Letters (London: Printed for T. Becket, 1780), by Richard Joseph Sullivan (1752-1806) [Volume 2, Letter 23, dated September 1778, page 223]—the following takes place in Scotland:

A poor fellow driving along his cart, upon a steep bank, and having a news-paper in his hand, probably “as old as the hills,” never once adverting to us, who were passing by, nor to the situation he was in himself, greedily kept poring over the paper until cart and all, gradually declining, at length lodged their contents at the bottom of the steep. Neither could this accident divert him from his purpose; for no sooner was he replaced in his former position, than he fell to again, and as eagerly attended to the subject of his contemplation, as if his very existence depended upon it.

4-: From Appearance is against Them, in a Series of Letters (London: Printed for Thomas Jones, 1786), by Elizabeth Inchbald (née Simpson – 1753-1821) [Volume 2, Letter 21, from Miss Rochley to Miss Lenox, page 19]:

If he was charmed with me, I do assure you I was no less so with him—how so delightful a man could so long continue a batchelor, Heaven knows!—crossed in love, I suppose, Harriot—not that that he is so very, very old, neither: I mention this, lest if we should make a match of it, and you should fancy him as old as the hills.

5-: From Lucinda Osburn: A Novel. In two Volumes. By a young Lady (Dublin: Printed for Messrs. Whitestone, Byrne, Lewis, Jones, and Halpen, 1787) [Volume 1, Letter 21, from Sir Henry Selwyn to James Crofts, Esq., page 73]:

I will discover this highly-favoured hero—this wandering knight, who has robbed me of my beloved’s affections; for, dare I flatter myself she could behold with indifference the man who behaved—but I torment myself!—After all, he may be as old as the hills, and as ugly as the devil.

6-: From The Palmyreans.—A Fragment. From a Manuscript found by Lord ——, in the Ruins of Palmyra, published in The Edinburgh Magazine, Or, Literary Miscellany (Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland) of March 1787 [chapter 2, page 160, column 2]:

The great ambition of a man of letters was, to be able to announce something new. If an unlucky gamester brought on his papyrus a combination of letters already known, every body abused him, saying, “That has been already said”—“that is as old as the hills”—“all the world knows that.”

7-: From Mammuth; Or, Human Nature Displayed on a Grand Scale: In a Tour with the Tinkers, into the Inland Parts of Africa (London: Printed for G. and T. Wilkie, 1789), by ‘The Man in the Moon’, i.e., William Thomson (1746-1817) [Volume 1, chapter 6: A Congress of Kings, page 180]:

The rarest delicacies of all countries were brought together, and magnificently displayed on the green lap of our common nurse, foodful mother Earth, older than the hills, and yet, as appeared from these proofs of fecundity, not the worse for the wearing.

8-: From Anecdotes of the Delborough Family. A Novel (London: Printed for William Lane, 1792), by Susannah Gunning (née Minifie – c. 1740-1800) [Volume 3, chapter 33, page 55]:

As to Lady Margaret, […] she is so spitish, so spleenish, and so cross, and since her plebian marriage, thinks me so much better off than herself, that the hates me worse than any thing in nature, except her husband, and knowing how much it would vex me, she would never let the Duke alone, ’till she had brought him to curtail me of my innocent pleasures, which I am resolved never to part with, ’till I am as old as the Hills, and as ugly as a witch.