Following up on the last post, the above picture shows how some sleep in traditional societies. This is from an article looking at sleep in hunter-gatherers and other traditional populations. The article states that:
"Adult sleepers in traditional societies recline on skins, mats, wooden platforms, the ground, or just about anything except a thick, springy mattress. Pillows or head supports are rare, and people doze in whatever they happen to be wearing."
The Lost Wanderer site also relayed this information from an anthropologist who studies hunter-gatherer sleep:
"Definitely, today's mattress that is kept for years, filled pillows, and lots of (frequently washed) bedclothes were not the pattern in human paleohistory. Nomadic foraging peoples did/do not have permanent homes and beds; rather, they usually sleep on the ground, with skins and/or leaves/boughs for some padding depending on how hard the substrate was/is. I would say that, on the whole, a firm, only slightly yielding substrate was very common, whether on the ground or a mat/low platform. Pillows, as I noted in the paper, apparently were virtually non-existent, except the ones in wood and, later, clay. All that said, I should also say that many traditional peoples suffer considerably with joint/muscle pain with aging. Did the sleeping substrates help prevent back problems to which humans are prone, or did daily activity and chronic load-bearing take care of that? As usual, as many questions as answers."
Following up on the last post, the above picture shows how some sleep in traditional societies. This is from an article looking at sleep in hunter-gatherers and other traditional populations. The article states that:
"Adult sleepers in traditional societies recline on skins, mats, wooden platforms, the ground, or just about anything except a thick, springy mattress. Pillows or head supports are rare, and people doze in whatever they happen to be wearing."
The Lost Wanderer site also relayed this information from an anthropologist who studies hunter-gatherer sleep:
"Definitely, today's mattress that is kept for years, filled pillows, and lots of (frequently washed) bedclothes were not the pattern in human paleohistory. Nomadic foraging peoples did/do not have permanent homes and beds; rather, they usually sleep on the ground, with skins and/or leaves/boughs for some padding depending on how hard the substrate was/is. I would say that, on the whole, a firm, only slightly yielding substrate was very common, whether on the ground or a mat/low platform. Pillows, as I noted in the paper, apparently were virtually non-existent, except the ones in wood and, later, clay. All that said, I should also say that many traditional peoples suffer considerably with joint/muscle pain with aging. Did the sleeping substrates help prevent back problems to which humans are prone, or did daily activity and chronic load-bearing take care of that? As usual, as many questions as answers."