In ancient times, after the sun set, the stars hung all over the sky, and the boredom in the cave of primitive people seemed to begin to spread, there was no TV to catch up on dramas until dawn, and they couldn't stay up late to brush their mobile phones, play video games, and they couldn't go out shopping, eat supper, etc., how did humans living in that period spend their nights?
Nights that can't sleep well
Outside the cave it was pitch black, and there might be ferocious beasts lurking in the darkness, so you couldn't go out, and with no pastime in the cave, the best way to spend the long night was probably to sleep. Considering that there was no artificial light in ancient times, and the wilderness was exceptionally quiet, we would speculate that people at that time should have slept better and for longer periods of time than modern people. If you really think so, you're probably wrong.
Scientists can't find out how long hominids sleep from human fossils, but they have taken a different approach and studied people from some tribes who still live in primitive conditions today. In 2015, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles conducted such a study. Researchers tracked the sleep patterns of the Hadza people living in Tanzania, the San people of Kara in Namibia, and the Tisman people in Bolivia. These people still retain their ancient ways of foraging – gathering and hunting. The researchers found that most of these people went to bed 3 hours after sunset, averaging about 6 and a half hours of sleep per night. Compared to other mammals that are close to us, these people sleep much shorter, such as chimpanzees, which sleep about nine and a half hours a day. Researchers speculate that the same may be true of hominids who lived a gatherer-hunting life, scrambling to feed and clothe themselves during the day and not sleeping much at night, and other studies suggest that hominids may have had trouble sleeping all night.
In a 2018 study, researchers found that humans slept for shorter periods because they spent less REM sleep and more time in non-REM sleep. REM is the stage of sleep that is most closely associated with vivid dreams, and this sleep stage is commonly referred to as the deep sleep stage. Non-REM is what we call light sleep patterns. Researchers believe that the pattern of light sleep is more than deep sleep, probably because ancient humans need to be vigilant at all times after coming to the ground from the tree, they need to be alert to predators that may appear around them at any time, so they have evolved a "nap-style" sleep mode in which deep and light sleep patterns intersect and deep sleep time is less. This idea seems to be supported by another study, in which researchers at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland found that mammals with higher food risks slept less on average.
So, how did the primitive humans who couldn't sleep well at night spend the long nights?
"Film and television drama" in the cave
In the 90s of the 20th century, Eduard Wachtel, a professor at the University of Fordham in France, visited several famous ancient caves in the south of France. When Vakhtl and his guide walked into the cave with gas lamps, he noticed that the petroglyphs on the walls of the cave seemed to move, with the horse's head raised and the ox's tail swaying ......Although the process was short-lived, Vachtl was amazed by the vivid visuals.
Later, he carefully observed the petroglyphs, and he found that the petroglyphs seemed to have undergone special treatment, and the animal figures in the petroglyphs seemed to overlap each other, such as the overlapping pattern of two goats, and the image of a deer superimposed on the image of a bull. So he thought of modern film technology, the reason why the movie appears dynamic is due to the effect of continuous and rapid display of a frame of still picture, he thinks that these ancient cave petroglyphs are like modern movies, the difference is that the cave petroglyphs present a dynamic effect through the change of lighting. At the same time, another French researcher studied the petroglyphs using modern technology, using computer software to separate the overlapping images and then make slides and show them in a certain order, and the result was a real animation.
Recently, researchers at the University of York in the United Kingdom discovered that primitive humans not only watched "big-screen movies", but also made and "documentaries" on the "small screen".
Researchers studied dozens of stone slabs excavated from the Magdalenia caves in southern France. These slabs are from 160,000 to 1350,000 years ago, the length and width were between 10 and 20 centimeters, and the images of animals, such as horses, cows, etc., were engraved on one or both sides. At first, little was known about what these tablets do, and how they are used. But upon closer inspection, the researchers found that most of them had one thing in common – they had been roasted at high temperatures. Given that other artifacts from the cave showed no signs of ever being exposed to high temperatures, and the results of simulation experiments, the researchers speculated that the slabs may have been deliberately placed next to campfires. But why put these slabs next to a campfire?
To unravel the mystery, the researchers created a three-dimensional model that simulated what the slabs would look like in the flickering light of a fire. They found that in the light of the fire, the stone slabs gave people the illusion of vividness. If several stone slabs are placed next to a campfire, as the fire flickers, the light changes, and even draws attention from one slab to another. Researchers believe that in ancient times, primitive people would sit around campfires at night after a hard day of hunting and gathering. This may be the time to share what you have seen and heard about the day, to chat, and to connect with each other. These slate slabs may have been the "props" of the people at that time, who carved pictures of themselves tracking their prey and observing predators on the slates, and shared their stories in a way similar to a "miniature documentary".
In this way, the night life of primitive people may not be so boring. However, whether this is the true purpose of the slate is still inconclusive. In any case, communication and Xi around the campfire was an important social activity for primitive people, and in the process of communication and sharing, they constantly improved their abilities, from hunting and gathering, to growing crops, to building human civilization.