d hides.

The woman of the cave-dwellers was a sturdy specimen of her sex, and
the long and arduous migrations in which the burden of the work fell
upon her shoulders were probably borne with little sense of hardship.
We can imagine a tribe, travelling afoot, for as yet neither the horse
nor any other animal had been domesticated: the men with their long
fish spears across their backs, their stone arrows hanging at their
sides, and their bows in hand, always alert for the wild beasts with
which they waged a relentless warfare; the women laden with all the
paraphernalia of their simple existence, many with a babe slung at the
back, and their naked, uncouth progeny following or gambolling about
them. The strange personal appearance of both men and women would
add to the oddity of the scene in modern eyes, for their bodies were
painted in grotesque patterns, and, if the rigors of the season made
any covering necessary, a simple skin, laced about them with reindeer
sinews, sufficed for clothing. On coming to a fresh hunting region,
near to some body of water or flowing stream, where the game would
naturally come to slake their thirst,--perhaps upon the grassy plains
that still extended over what is now the English Channel and formed a
part of the original land connection with the continent,--they paused
for another term of settled residence. Again the caves were resorted
to, or rudely thatched huts were erected. If the wild beasts pressed
the wanderers too hard, they sometimes had recourse to huts erected
upon rough stone heaps in the midst of an oozy swamp.

While the men gave themselves wholly to hunting, the women went about
their domestic pursuits. To them was assigned the making of such
scanty clothing as was imperatively required in the cold season; for
though the crude carvings of the time invariably represent the hunters
as naked, it cannot be concluded from such evidence that clothing was
not worn at all. The extremely serviceable reindeer sinews served the
women for thread, and a thin reindeer prong, pierced through at the
thick end, made a satisfactory needle. The skins were simply sewed
together at the edges, without shaping, but with apertures through
which to pass the head and arms. The women devised many ornaments;
these consisted of amulets and necklaces made of bone, ivory, and
shells, which, shaped and polished, they painstakingly punctured and
fastened together in long strings for the decoration of their