At the dawn of humanity, when mammoths still roamed the northern hemisphere, humans were already tucking themselves into bed. It wasn’t the foam mattresses of today, but it was pretty comfy considering the alternative was a hard cave floor.
In Border Cave, between eSwatini (Swaziland) and KwaZulu-Natal, a multi-disciplined team of scientists and archaeologists have found what they believe are the remains of the earliest known bed used by humans.
It dates back at least 200 000 years. Compared to what modern humans have grown accustomed to, it wasn’t much, just piles of grass packed on the cave floor. But this was more than just a bed, it probably served as a couch and a workstation too.
“So it wasn’t just a bed to sleep on, it was a surface where people worked,” says the team leader, archaeologist Professor Lyn Wadley of Wits University.
“We know that because there were stone tools made there, and some of them refit quite nicely. We also recovered tiny grains of red ochre and it looks like people had rubbed it on their skins. And while they were lying on the grass these tiny powder grains rubbed off again.”
These beds were placed near the back of the cave on layers of ash, and were made of bundles of grass of the broad-leafed Panicoideae subfamily.
“The date is quite interesting because it does push back some quite complex behaviours and behaviours that show how people are integrating with spaces,” says Wits archaeologist Dr Dominic Stratford, who is another member of the team.
“They are doing something with ochre which could be very exciting. They could be producing ochre for composite tools or glues, or something else. They could have even been using it for decoration. We just can’t tell at this point.”
The team’s findings have appeared in the latest issue of the journal, Science. Researchers were able to identify the remains of the grass by the microscopic traces that were left behind.
But there is a lot more to the bedding and Wadley believes their discovery provides a snapshot into just how complex these early humans were. The team believes that the ash was used as an early insect repellent.
“I did some experiments with ticks, placing them in a circle of ash. What I discovered is that when they go through it, they become absolutely coated in it. So it looks like the suggestion that their breathing apparatus gets blocked is probably true,” says Wadley.
Among the remains of grass, researchers also found Tarchonanthus, which is known as camphor bush. Today, this plant is used to deter flying insects in parts of East Africa.
What the researchers believe is that the occupants of the cave, following a typical hunter-gatherer lifestyle, would have only visited for a short period of time. When they returned to the cave it is suspected that they would probably burn the old bedding to get rid of parasites and this would have added to the ash heap.
To Wadley, this ritual is yet again a reveal of how humans had mastered fire even this far back in history.
“It’s quite humble beginnings, but without the fire technology, if we include the manufacturing of ash, people wouldn’t have been able to get to those innovations that they got to, by 100 000 years ago. By then we see the heat treatment of rocks.
“And it all starts out with the ability to create fire, when you want it and how you want it.”
As yet, it is not known how these residents of Border Cave were getting their fire. It could have been that they were dragging in flaming branches, from a veld fire, or striking pieces of quartz to start their own flames.
It was the building on this mastery of fire so long ago that ultimately led to all of humankind’s technological achievements. More digging is planned at Border Cave, and the researchers are hoping that they will find more that will provide additional insight into the domestic and working lives of our ancestors all the time ago.
“There are a lot of things we can’t recognise as yet in the bedding, but we are hoping as we find more of it we will get better identification of specific plants that might tell us a little bit more. It could even tell us what season they placed these beds, and that would be fantastic,” says Stratford.