Paleolithic & hunter-gatherer sleep

Poor sleep is a major barrier to good health. Before we consider ways to improve our sleep, we need to look back to the Paleolithic and to hunter-gatherer societies. Paleo-anatomists studying fossilized skeletons of Australopithecus and Homo habilis note they were well adapted to climbing. Although they probably spent much of daytime on the ground, they likely slept in trees. Sleeping on the ground probably began with the control of fire, which, in addition to improving nutrition, provided safety.

The first hominid to control fire may have been late Homo habilis, or Homo ergaster. Cooking provided a higher quality and more digestible diet, which led to a smaller gut and a larger brain (the expensive tissue hypothesis). Both day and night could be spent on the ground and hominid anatomy slowly became more human-like. The resulting hominid, Homo erectus, was tall and well adapted for migration over land. Their vestibular anatomy also indicates a primarily ground-based existence.

Richard Wrangham, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard, in his book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, writes:

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