Oldest Known Mattresses from South African Rock Shelter (1 of 12) (IMAGE)
Caption
This shows a geological thin section, in profile, of multiple burnt bedding layers (thin section is 5x7.5 cm). The thin black layers are carbonized stems and leaves, and the light coloured layers are ashes derived from the burnt bedding. The layers here date to 58,000 years ago. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the Dec. 9, 2011, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by L. Wadley at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and colleagues was titled, “Middle Stone Age Bedding Construction and Settlement Patterns at Sibudu, South Africa.”
Credit
Image courtesy of Prof. Christopher Miller
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