How Did Early Humans Sleep Without Getting Eaten?

How did Stone Age humans sleep with no locked doors, mattresses, or electric lights? The answer is more interesting than the image of a lone caveman lying awake in fear. In this video, we explore ancient grass bedding found at Border Cave and Sibudu, alongside sleep research with present-day Hadza, San, and Tsimané communities. One Hadza camp study found that all monitored participants were scored asleep at the same time for only 18 minutes across 20 nights. That does not prove ancient camps had guards, or that people in the past slept better than we do. It offers a different way to picture the night: prepared bedding, shelter, and people whose sleep did not all happen at once. Research discussed: Yetish et al. (2015) — Natural Sleep and Its Seasonal Variations in Three Pre-industrial Societies Samson et al. (2017) — Chronotype Variation Drives Night-time Sentinel-like Behaviour in Hunter-gatherers Wadley et al. (2020) — Fire and Grass-bedding Construction 200 Thousand Years Ago at Border Cave Wadley et al. (2011) — Middle Stone Age Bedding Construction and Settlement Patterns at Sibudu #StoneAge #Prehistory #HumanSleep