necks
and arms. Apparently, it was not customary to wear foot covering of
any kind, as the feet of such skeletons of this period as have been
found are so symmetrical as to preclude the probability of constraint
during growth. The men may have worn some form of foot covering
when engaged in such exposed work as spearing the seal in the winter
season; but the women, who remained in shelter during the severities
of the winter, did not avail themselves of any such protection. The
fact that gloves were worn by men seems to be established by some of
the rude etchings of the period, for in them such articles appear to
be discernible.

The sanitary condition of the homes of these hunting tribes was of the
worst description; the offal and refuse were thrown at the very doors
of the cave, there to decay and poison the air. The caves themselves
were smoke-begrimed and foul, for house cleaning had not yet entered
into the economy of woman. While, by reason of their simple, open-air
life, they were a vigorous race, the ills to which the cave-dwellers
fell a prey, the injuries they suffered in warfare or from the attacks
of wild beasts, or the diseases contracted through unsanitary living,
must have been sources of great dread to them, as they were without
any medical knowledge of which we have trace. When the women,
particularly, became too sick to perform their allotted tasks, they
were carried out to die or to become the victims of savage beasts; but
this was only one of the inevitable phases of an existence that was
replete with tragedies.

From the evidence afforded by the great abundance of arrow heads and
spear points surviving from this period, there is no doubt that the
cave men were much given to warfare. Aside from the natural pugnacity
and ferocity of savage races, which lead them to fight upon very
little provocation, there was with the cave-dwellers another source
of constant hostility. As has been stated with reference to the
river-drift people, the women were not permanently attached to the
men. It is just as true that they were not permanently attached to
their tribes, for when, through disease or the ravages of wild beasts,
the women of any horde became greatly diminished in number, their
ranks were recruited by forays upon other tribes. These attacks for
the purpose of stealing the women of their enemies were especially
provocative of fierce conflicts, as the depletion of its stock of
women often seriously cri