How Did Ancient Humans Sleep With Mosqiutoes Everywhere?

How Did Ancient Humans Sleep With Mosqiutoes Everywhere? no sprays, no screens on the windows, and a mosquito that hunts by heat, smell and breath. So how did anyone sleep? This video looks at how humans slept in places full of biting insects, long before nets, sprays or screens: what the bedding at Border Cave and Sibudu actually shows, why birds and monkeys were doing something similar first, what plant smoke does to mosquito numbers, how hunter-gatherer sleep spreads across the night, what malaria did to our genome, and the oldest written account of a mosquito net. A NOTE ON THE EVIDENCE Archaeology can show what people did. It can't show why. So this video keeps three things apart: what was found in the ground, what the researchers themselves suggest it means, and what is my own reconstruction. Where the evidence runs out, I say so. SOURCES Archaeology Wadley, L. et al., "Fire and grass-bedding construction 200 thousand years ago at Border Cave, South Africa", Science 369 (2020) — https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s... Wits University summary of that paper — https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-ne... Sievers, C. & Wadley, L. et al., Quaternary Science Reviews (2021) — the paper noting that aromatic camphor-bush charcoal implies a strategy against airborne pests may have been employed Wadley, L. et al., "Middle Stone Age bedding construction and settlement patterns at Sibudu, South Africa", Science 334 (2011) — https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s... Morrissey, P. & Stratford, D., Journal of Archaeological Science 191 (2026) 106592 — six microfacies in the Border Cave bedding Mosquitoes Chandel, A., DeBeaubien, N. A. et al., "Thermal infrared directs host-seeking behaviour in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes", Nature 633 (2024) — https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158... Biting patterns of Anopheles gambiae and An. funestus, Uganda, Parasites & Vectors — https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... Wendimu, A. & Tekalign, W., plant-smoke repellency field trial, Heliyon (2021) — https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti... Animals that got there first Weldon, P. J. et al., "Benzoquinones from millipedes deter mosquitoes and elicit self-anointing in capuchin monkeys", Naturwissenschaften 90 (2003) — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12883... Messer, E. J. E. et al., "Mutual medication in capuchin monkeys", Scientific Reports 5 (2015) — https://www.nature.com/articles/srep1... Mennerat, A. et al., "Aromatic plants in nests of the blue tit protect chicks from bacteria", Oecologia (2009) — https://link.springer.com/article/10.... Sleep Samson, D. R. et al., "Chronotype variation drives night-time sentinel-like behaviour in hunter-gatherers", Proc. R. Soc. B 284 (2017) — https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... Malaria Sharp, P. M., Plenderleith, L. J. & Hahn, B. H., "Ape origins of human malaria", Annual Review of Microbiology — https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... Esoh, K. & Wonkam, A., "Evolutionary history of sickle-cell mutation", Human Molecular Genetics (2021) — https://academic.oup.com/hmg/article/... WHO malaria fact sheet, 2024 estimates — https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sh... History Herodotus, Histories 2.95 (Perseus) — https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/... Charlwood, D., "Did Herodotus describe the first airborne use of mosquito repellents?", Trends in Parasitology 19 (2003) — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14642... What's your record for staying awake hunting one mosquito? Tell me in the comments. #EarlyHumans #HumanEvolution #AncientHumans #StoneAge #Archaeology #Prehistory #AncientHistory #Anthropology