Sunday 16 August 2020

Fire and grass-bedding construction 200 thousand years ago at Border Cave, South Africa



HERE is a paper in Science, reporting evidence of human bedding from 200,000 years ago. The Abstract reads:
We report the discovery of grass bedding used to create comfortable areas for sleeping and working by people who lived in Border Cave at least 200,000 years ago. Sheaves of grass belonging to the broad-leafed Panicoideae subfamily were placed near the back of the cave on ash layers that were often remnants of bedding burned for site maintenance. This strategy is one forerunner of more-complex behavior that is archaeologically discernible from ~100,000 years ago.