t of abandonment was
reserved for her when she could no longer fulfil the hard conditions
of her existence.

In some respects, the life of the women of the cave-dwellers of the
later Pleistocene period was of a higher order than that which we have
just described--not that there was any essential difference in the
social grade of the two peoples, but that the cave-dwellers had
learned to make better implements of the chase and to fashion more
effectively all their weapons and tools. The greater security to
life afforded by these improvements and the greater assurance of
subsistence led to more settled living, and thereby afforded an
opportunity to develop a social organization that should have for its
basis something of greater permanence than a temporary need. While it
would be hazardous, then, to assume too much in the way of improvement
in the life of the women of the cave-dwellers over that of the women
of the river-drift, yet it should be borne in mind that in states
of society such as those represented by these remote inhabitants of
Britain, even a slight advance in the scale of living marks an epoch
of progress.

The cave-dwellers succeeded the people of the river-drift as
inhabitants of Britain, and the combined occupancy of the country by
these peoples covered a vast stretch of time. It is very probable
that their periods overlapped, and that the later people were in part
contemporary with the former. Though the people of the river-drift
and the dwellers in caves may have avoided intermixture, as have the
Esquimaux and the American Indians, yet there is nothing absolutely
to preclude the idea that such race distinction was observed during
great periods of time. So that all we have to say of the women of the
cave-dwellers may be equally applied to the women of the later times
of the river-drift.

The cave-dwellers, like their predecessors, were hunters. For their
dwellings they chose the caves from which they had driven out the bear
and the lion. These rude homes the women hung about with the skins of
the horse or the wolf, and spread on the floor for couches the hides
of these or of other beasts that had fallen by the arrows of the
hunters or had been ensnared in their pitfalls. Here the tribe
remained until the scarcity of game or the assault of enemies impelled
it to migrate. Where there were no caves, huts were constructed. These
were framed with the branches and trunks of trees and covered with
skins an