What Ordinary Life Was Really Like For Cavemen In 10,000 BC | History for Sleep

Hey guys! We're now on Spotify 🎧 Join us here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1iLKLmP... Fall asleep to one ordinary October day with a small hunting band at the very end of the Ice Age, around 10,000 BC, in the south of what is now England. In a modern test, making fire their way, with flint, pyrite and hoof-fungus tinder, took about 48 seconds. Their tents were circles about 5 metres across, walled with hides and held down with stones. One reindeer gave about 35 to 40 kg of meat, and a sewing needle of bone could weigh 0.3 g. So why do we still picture these people crouched in caves? Subscribe to the channel: @oldhistorynights In this video, we talk about what ordinary life was really like for the people we call cavemen, including the hide tent at first light, fire struck from two stones, the long-blade camps of the Kennet valley, the last cold snap of the Ice Age and dry Doggerland, where the caveman myth came from, broth boiled with hot stones, the autumn reindeer crossing, the pine arrows of Stellmoor, everything one reindeer gave, knapping flint and children learning at the edge of the tent, scraping hides, needles cut from a swan's wing bone, what a day's work was worth in minutes, the engravings of Creswell Crags, the horse hunters of Gough's Cave at Cheddar, the rules nobody wrote down, supper by the hearth, the Bonn-Oberkassel dog, night talk and stories, Ice Age lamps and torches, the bed of hides, the grandparents and the very young, keeping the fire through the night, and a sky with a different pole star. 🔔 Subscribe for more long, quiet nights inside the homes of the past, from the Ice Age onwards. 💬 Tell us where you're listening from, and which part of the band's day you'd most like to have seen with your own eyes. 📢 Share this with anyone who still pictures cavemen with clubs, on Facebook, Reddit or the family group chat. You're the reason these nights keep coming. Chapters: 00:00 Opening 16:04 The camp on the gravel bank 37:24 Broth from hot stones 58:21 Everything one reindeer gave 1:18:42 Scraping the hide in the cold sun 1:39:41 The gorge at Creswell Crags 2:01:35 Dusk comes down the valley 2:22:48 Night talk is story talk 2:38:04 The bed of hides 2:53:10 Someone keeps the fire Sources: Natural History Museum, Gough's Cave at Cheddar https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-ca... University of Bristol, Creswell Crags cave art dated (2005) https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2005/6... British Museum, the Robin Hood Cave horse https://www.britishmuseum.org/collect... Conneller, Bayliss, Milner and Taylor, The Long Blades (Internet Archaeology 42) https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue42... Ministère de la Culture, Étiolles: life inside the tents https://archeologie.culture.gouv.fr/e... Nautilus, The Caveman's Home Was Not a Cave https://nautil.us/the-cavemans-home-w... Medina-Alcaide et al., Palaeolithic lighting experiments (PLOS One, 2021) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/art... DISCLAIMER: This video is based on real historical events and figures, drawn from the sources listed above alongside primary archives, biographies, court records, period press, and leading historical scholarship. While every video is heavily researched, occasional minor inaccuracies in dates, quotes, or specific details may occur — historical sources sometimes disagree, and interpretation is sometimes required where the historical record is silent. Any errors are unintentional. #OldHistoryNights #HistoryForSleep #SleepStory #IceAge #StoneAge #Cavemen #Palaeolithic #Prehistory #PrehistoricBritain #HunterGatherers #Reindeer #Doggerland #CreswellCrags #CheddarGorge #GoughsCave #Archaeology #BedtimeStory #History #Documentary