MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
linen and wool; India, cotton; and southeastern Asia, hemp 
and silk. Some reason exists for the supposition that the 
cocoons of the silkworm were at first torn up and shredded 
and then twisted into thread before it was found that 
much longer and stronger fibers could be had by simply 
unwinding them. In most parts of the New World where 
clothing was necessary at all, skins continued to be used; 
but even there, in certain regions, weaving became known 
and reached finally a high degree of excellence. 
Art had its beginning far back in the Old Stone Age. 
The earlier of the paintings and carved work found in the 
caves of southwestern Europe, authorities agree, date at 
least from 20,000 to 25,000 years ago. And doubtless even 
before that men and women adorned their bodies with 
strings of shells and teeth and bright berries, with various 
painted designs and possibly tattoo marks as well, to say 
nothing of bright feathers and the skins and even horns 
of various animals. But primitive man designed none of 
these primarily for decoration. He meant them for 
charms, to ward off evil or bring good luck. Every man 
throughout those long, dark ages doubtless had his ‘“‘medi- 
cine bag” containing odds and ends of all sorts—bits of 
crystal, curiously shaped stones and knots of wood, dried 
portions of the bodies of animals and men—anything, in 
short, that drew his attention for any reason and seemed 
to him endowed with mysterious power. The virtue still 
attached by some people to a rabbit’s foot or to the 
“hand of glory”—the dried hand of a man who has been 
hanged—is a last lingering trace of this very primitive 
conception. 
Man made an advance upon this when he began to shape 
his charms artificially. At first, probably for long ages, 
he confined himself to selecting objects that bore a chance 
or fancied resemblance to a bird, an animal, or a human 
face, eventually increasing the likeness by a little pecking 
and chipping here and there. But during the Aurignacian 
and Magdalenian epochs of the Old Stone Age artists did 
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