Archaeological team led by Professor Lyn Wadley of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg recently found evidence of a bed of plants in Sibudu rock shelter, South Africa.
The findings were thought to serve as a simple container to put plants and humans can sleep on it as a base. The site has been tracked was about 77,000 to 38,000 years.
One-centimeter-thick beds are filled by a leaf, a variety of grass with a thin layer of leaves on it. Selection of leaf showing the good old human knowledge about the properties of local plants. The leaves have a certain chemical insecticides and effectively repel mosquitoes from the bed.
Most of the plants in the layers below it is a herbal medicine. It shows that the bed seems to be used to save a useful plant to be easily accessible while providing a soft surface to create a more comfortable place to live.
Microscopic analysis showed that the human bed regularly replace old and refilling plants in the bed as one of her work at the site.
"The selection of leaves to make a bed shows that the ancient inhabitants Sibudu have an intimate knowledge of plants in the neighborhood and realized by using herbal medicines will provide benefits to human health. And the use of insect repellent plants give us a new understanding of human behavior in 77,000 years then, "said Professor Wadley as quoted from io9.com, Friday (11/09/2011).
"People from ancient times to collect the grass along the river uThongathi located directly beneath the site. The bed was not only used for sleeping, but also provides a surface that is comfortable to live and work," he added
This is just one of a number of extraordinary discoveries about the ancient human activity on the site. Have previously found evidence of ancient technology in the form of bows and arrows, snares and traps to hunt, even the glue is simple to manufacture stone tools.
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