Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/303

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The arts of spinning and the manufacture of linen were introduced into Europe in the Neolithic age, and they have been preserved with but little variation from that period down to the present day in certain remote parts of Europe, and have only been superseded in modern times by the complicated machines so familiar to us. In the Neolithic household the spindle and the distaff were always to be found, and the circular perforated spindle-whorls, made sometimes of stone, and at other times of pottery or bone, are very commonly met with in the Neolithic habitations and tombs. The thread is proved by the discoveries in the Swiss lakes to have been composed of flax, and the combs (Fig. 96), which have been used for pushing the threads of the warp on to the weft, show that it was woven into linen on some kind of loom. It is very probable also that the art of making woollen cloth was also known, although from its perishable nature no trace of it has been handed down to us. These operations were probably carried on by the women, as was the universal practice among the classical peoples of the Mediterranean, as well as among the rude tribes of Africa, Asia, and America.

The fragments of pottery found in and around the habitations and tombs show that the Neolithic inhabitants of Britain and Ireland were acquainted with the potter's art. Their vessels are coarsely made by hand, and very generally composed of clay, in which small pieces of stone, or fragments of shell, have been worked.