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Fire and grass-bedding construction 200 thousand years ago at Border Cave, South Africa
Bedding of grass and ashes
The Border Cave site in the KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa has been a rich source of archaeological knowledge about Stone Age humans because of its well-preserved stratigraphic record. Wadley et al. now report the discovery of grass bedding in Border Cave, dated to approximately 200,000 years ago. The bedding, identified with a range of microscopic and spectroscopic techniques, was mingled with layers of ash. It also incorporated debris from lithics, burned bone, and rounded ochre grains, all of which were of clear anthropogenic origin. The authors speculate that the ash may have been deliberately used in bedding to inhibit the movement of ticks and other arthropod irritants. These discoveries extend the record of deliberate construction of plant bedding by at least 100,000 years.
Science, this issue p. 863
Abstract
Early plant use is seldom described in the archaeological record because of poor preservation. 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.
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Materials and Methods
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Volume 369 | Issue 6505
14 August 2020
14 August 2020
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Acknowledgments
L.W. and C.S. thank the South African National Biodiversity Institute, and they thank J. van Rooy for the use of the Phenom Pure SEM. A. Millard provided numerical data from his 2006 Bayesian analysis of electron spin resonance dates. Funding: L.B. was funded by National Geographic (NGS-54810R-19) and the DSI-NRF (Department of Science and Innovation–National Research Foundation) Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (COEOP2020-1). I.E. and P.d.l.P. acknowledge the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences. D.E.R. was funded by the Fyssen Foundation, France, and the l’Oréal-UNESCO “Per le Donne e la Scienza” program (l’Oréal Italia and Italian National Commission for UNESCO, Italy). F.d’E. was funded by the Talents program of the Initiative d'Excellence of the University of Bordeaux, the Agence Nationale de la Recherche – LaScArBx Cluster of Excellence (ANR-10-LABX-52), and the Research Council of Norway through its Centre of Excellence funding scheme [SFF Centre for Early Sapiens Behavior (SapienCE) project number 262618]. Author contributions: Botanical investigation, formal analysis, and project conceptualization: L.W. and C.S. Site excavation: L.B., F.d’E., L.W., P.d.l.P., C.S., and D.S. 5WA-DBK bedding excavation: L.W. Phytolith study and some attenuated total reflectance (ATR)–FTIR: I.E. Lithic study and Fig. 1: P.d.l.P. ATR-FTIR and Raman analysis: M.W. Energy-dispersive x-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) and SEM–energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS): D.E.R. Micromorphology: D.S. Charcoal analysis: S.L. Ochre analysis: F.d’E., D.E.R., and F.O. Writing: L.W. with contributions from all other authors. All authors reviewed and edited the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data and materials are included in the text and supplementary materials. The Border Cave excavated material from 2015 to 2019 is housed in the Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa (Border Cave 2015/2019). See supplementary materials for additional acknowledgments.
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