We know that bed frames emerged a long time ago. more than 5,000 yearsthat Tutankhamun was buried next to several cots (including one foldable) or that in the Middle Ages it was not unusual for people to sleep in closetsbut… How did our most remote ancestors, the prehistoric humans who spent their nights in caves, manage to rest? Did they have beds? And if so, how were they prepared? Did they do something similar to the sheet changes?
A remote cave located on the border between South Africa and Eswatini just cleared some of those unknowns. And their answers are fascinating.
The science of sleep. Few things come more naturally and spontaneously to us than sleeping, but that doesn’t mean it’s a simple matter. Not at least for researchers who are dedicated to studying rest from a scientific perspective, psychological and historicalwhich is precisely what a group of archaeologists has done who has examined several remains of beds in Border Cavea prehistoric site located in the Lebombo mountains with an extensive record that spans from the Paleolithic to the Iron Age.
Experts have known about the cave for about 90 years and have been excavating it for decades in search of information about our most remote ancestors, but it still has some surprises in store for them. Recently, for example, they analyzed several sediments at a microscopic level that allowed them to identify something curious: six microfacies with remains that tell us about different types of prehistoric ‘beds’. Beds made basically with plants and ash.
Why is it important? To begin with, because the remains located by archaeologists in Border Cave cover a very broad period of time. It is known that the cavern was occupied during a period that extends between 220,000 and 43,000 years back. In fact, the remains of beds date back to between 161,000 and 43,000. Some are even older and date back to 200,000 years ago.
As if that were not enough, there is another key fact: there are not many strata studied with a level of detail like that of Border Cave. Experts had already analyzed vestiges in Shibhudu or the deposit of Diepkloofboth in South Africa, but the new sediments have allowed them to go one step further and better understand what resting areas were like in Prehistory.
Vegetable beds. One of the conclusions reached by the researchers is that the beds were made with herbs Panicoideaea subfamily of grasses. and reeds. With these materials, the inhabitants of Border Cave created different types of ‘beds’, some with patterns very similar to those seen in other sites in Africa and others apparently novel.
“We describe six microfacies stratigraphic characteristics identified in the Border Cave deposits, which cover a period between 200,000 and 43,000 years,” the researchers point out in a study published in Journal of Archaeological Science. “Several match those described at Sibhudu and Diepkloof, although with small and potentially significant differences. Three microfacies, associated with more recent ‘grass mats’, have no published equivalents.”
The trail of ash. In the cave, archaeologists have not only found remains of plants. They also located ash. Revealing ash deposits under the plant beds that leave behind some interesting ideas and tell us about how they prepared the ‘beds’ tens of thousands of years ago.
For example, archaeologists report that thousands of years ago the inhabitants of Border Cave could use ash as a resource to keep their resting areas dry and warm and keep insects away. Another possibility is that they burned old vegetation to add new one, an idea that is not exactly new. “The construction of plant-based beds and their maintenance with the burning and addition of fresh material has received increasing attention in the search for the origins of modern human behaviors,” recognize.
Looking at our ancestors. Another telling clue is that not all Border Cave is the same. Archaeologists have seen important differences depending on the age of the deposits, something that can be seen in the burned remains or the concentrations of phytoliths. For example, the more modern ‘beds’, those between 60,000 and 43,000 years old, are less fragmented and also appear to have been less burned and walked on.
“New evidence pointing to the deliberate placement of ash on surfaces prior to bed construction is ambiguous, but the creation of beds over existing or purposefully displaced ash deposits was clearly common practice across all occupations,” ditch.
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