Women of England

by Bartlett Burleigh James

Although caves continued to be used to some extent for dwellings, they were not characteristic of the civilization of the times. Man had become a home builder. The evolution from the cave dwellings is seen in the style of houses that were first constructed. They consisted of pits dug to a depth of seven to ten feet, and about seven feet wide at the base. These pits were roofed over with a sort of thatch, filled in with imperfectly burnt clay. They were built singly and in groups, and were sometimes connected by a system of underground passages. Access was had to these dwellings by a slanting, shaftlike entrance. A pit village was usually stockaded to protect it against the assaults of foes. Outside it were the arable lands and the common pasture lands for the sheep and goats; enclosing these, the forest stretched out in all directions.

Looking down from one of the surrounding hilltops upon such a village, it would have presented to the eye of the observer the appearance of a number of round hillocks but little higher than the ground level. Thin lines of smoke, slowly ascending, would mark the places where the common meals were in course of preparation. As the traveller descended the hillside, his approach would be challenged by gaunt, savage sheep dogs, from whose attacks he would need to defend himself. As he passed out into the clearing, he would be confronted by the men, some of them tilling the soil, others acting as shepherds or swineherds. Perhaps a field of golden wheat would lend its beauty to the scene, Approaching the dwellings, the women would be seen at their several employments; some busy cutting up the meat and swinging it over the fires to roast, or boiling it in pots with herbs and roots to make a savory stew, others mixing dough and spreading it upon flat stones over hot embers to bake. Sitting about on the rocks or squatting upon skins spread upon the ground, other women would be found busily making pottery, modelling the clay with their hands, and scratching upon it lines, circles, and pyramids in various combinations, or fashioning designs by pressing reindeer sinews into the substance. Still others would be discovered busily spinning and weaving flax and wool into fabrics for the clothing that marked one of the advances of the Neolithic people. In the distance would be heard the dull strokes of the stone axes with which, in the depth of the wood, the men felled the tall timber.

For the industries presented in this picture of a Neolithic village, there were suitable implements. For all domestic purposes, the art of pottery making had solved the question of satisfactory vessels. These were generally in two colors, either brown or black. The potter's wheel had not yet been invented, so that the vessels lacked the grace and uniformity of later work of the sort. Wheat was ground by means of a mortar and pestle. Knives for various uses, saws, and scrapers were all made of highly polished and very keen-edged flint flakes. The great superiority of their stone implements over those of earlier races has given a name to the people, but the culture of the Polished Stone Age reveals, as its most salient fact, not this, but rather the domestication of animals and the tilling of the soil. It is significant to note that these most characteristic features of the Polished Stone Age denote the advance of society in the arts of peaceful living. War was prevalent enough, but human development had discovered another line of advancement, and, by reason of the increased incentives to peaceful living, war was not usually undertaken simply for the pleasure of fighting. Protection of flocks and herds, of cleared fields and settled homes, became the chief occasion of the wars waged by the Neolithic people.

In such a society as we have described, there is a community of interest that tends to give stability to the ties of relationship. The fairly settled state of life was undoubtedly accompanied by a social organization of some sort that could properly deal with the matters of individual rights. The family had become evolved from the horde; promiscuity had doubtless given place to polygamy, or, under the exceptional conditions of a greater number of men than of women, to polyandry. Neither of these forms of marriage carried with it the idea of fixity and of family responsibility.

A feature of the Neolithic age was its commerce. By a system of intertribal traffic, the simple commodities of the widely dispersed peoples of Europe became distributed among the various tribes. By this means, many articles not of domestic manufacture were added to the comfort of the people of Britain. Thus, the women were enabled to adorn themselves with jade beads that must have come from the region of the Mediterranean Sea, and even with gold ornaments from as distant points. These instances, however, were exceptional, and are to be accounted for in the same manner that we account for the most unlikely things in the possession of the tribes of Central Africa—by gradual hand-to-hand passage.

There was probably an absence of religious ideas among the predecessors of the Polished Stone races; but among the remains of the latter are ample proofs of the prevalence among them of such notions. Caves that once had served them as residences were later used for places of burial, the bodies being piled up with earth until the cavities were completely filled. Accompanying human remains have been found urns, supposedly for burning incense, personal ornaments, implements, and weapons, placed there for the use of the dead. If the people possessed religious conceptions that led them to believe in an after life, there is no room for doubt that religion had a place in the economy of their living. The women of this time, then, could look forward to something better than abandonment to starvation after they became enfeebled by age or sickness, and they may not have lacked religious associations in their 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, there was introduced into her life nothing to be compared to the contributions made thereto in the preceding age. While her horizon was greatly broadened, and while she benefited by the improvements in living,—better facilities, comforts, and even luxuries,—yet the advance was along established lines. We may surely believe that closer intercourse with outside peoples brought a corresponding quickening of thought and an appreciation of the merits of grades of life higher than her own. There was no marked change in the style of dwellings of the people of the Bronze Age from those of the Neolithic period; but their furnishings were better, and, instead of the skins of wild animals, those of domestic animals and, perhaps, woven and brightly dyed fabrics now served for couches, and were hung about the walls as a protection against dampness. The utensils of the home were varied and ornamental, the conventional patterns having given place to other, though still simple, designs. In the homes of the wealthy, knives and spoons and the finer grades of vessels were of bronze.