heir everyday life to give to it deeper
meaning and interest.

From the foregoing sketch of her life, it is very clear that the
condition of Neolithic woman, the range of her ideas, and the elements
of her comfort, were much in advance of those of the woman of the
Paleolithic period. The contributions to her existence were indeed
elements of civilization, and formed the basis for all that the life
of the sex has come to be. In the realm of institutions, the home was
beginning to have a place and a meaning in the life of the people.
Religion, also, had come to widen the horizon of life. Very crude, but
real, elements of social progress were all these.

The succeeding age--the Bronze--has been credited with working as
great a revolution in life and giving it as great an impetus as did
the invention of gunpowder in the Middle Ages. It is certainly a fact
that the invention of this beautiful alloy was looked upon by the
ancients who lived close to its age as of incalculable importance
in its influence upon civilization--a judgment that is confirmed by
anyone who studies its abundant remains. Manufactures and commerce
were important interests of the times: smelting furnaces and
the smith's shop turned out beautiful specimens of wares of all
sort--shields, spears, arrow tips, cups of graceful pattern, vessels
for all purposes, ornaments, and the trimmings for the large boats
made necessary by a wide commerce, were all manufactured beyond the
needs of domestic consumption. The stimulated inventiveness of the
people added many new articles of comfort to their lives.

The development of bronze was not original with the people of Britain,
but was introduced through an invasion of bronze-using people. For
this reason, the change made in the life of the people was radical,
instead of being, as on the continent, a gradual process. The struggle
that ensued between the bronze users and the stone users was a contest
between an advanced civilization and one of a lower order; and its
issue was predetermined. The newcomers became the controlling element
in the country. The tendency of the new order of things was toward
individualism. Personal ownership brought with it social grades, so
that it is impossible to make statements with regard to the bronze
people that apply equally to all the race.

But we are concerned with the conditions of the times only as the
setting in which we are to study the life of woman. In the Bronze
Age, ther