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[[underline]] Chapter XVIII. [[/underline]] 3^[[94.]] page 172 and footnotes 165 and 166); but here also, more investigation is needed. [[underline]] Sewing and Tailoring. [[/underline]] As already stated, the excavators found great numbers of baked clay spinning-whorls---clear evidence that the Neolithic people here had commonly practised the twisting of thread and probably the twining of string.[[superscript]] (349) [[/superscript]] ------------------ [[superscript]] (349) [[/superscript]] These prehistoric spinning-whorls are sometimes picked up in the fields by the modern peasant population (which ordinarily employs perforated copper cash for the purpose) and applied to their original use. ------------------------- The occurrence of so many perforated bone needles indicates that sewing was done, if not actually on cloth, then at least on animal skins and furs (perhaps footgear).[[superscript]] (349-a) [[/superscript]] It would be quite in keeping, indeed, with ------------------ [[superscript]] (349-a) [[/superscript]] In Europe, and especially in southwestern France, perforated needles, of bone and mammoth ivory, go back to the Late Palaeolithic, when of course there can hardly have been any question of weaving. ----------------------- the "northern" aspect of so many elements of the prehistoric culture represented at Wa Cha Hsieh if the Neolithic inhabitants of the site should have made use, at least in winter, of tailored garments of fur like those ascribed in the ancient records to the Ti, in nearly the same locality, or like those worn by the modern Eskimo and many peoples of northeastern Siberia.[[superscript]] (350) [[/superscript]] ----------------------------- [[superscript]] (350) [[/superscript]] The rough sheepskin garments of the northern Chinese peasantry ([[underline]] cf. [[/underline]] pl. 37, fig. 1) and of Mongols of the poorer class come to mind in this connection, and may well be direct survivals (in another material) from prehistoric times. ------------------------------------- The eyes of the needles, some of them quite fine, must almost cer-tainly have been pierced with the aid of the bow-drill)(doubtless in this case "armed" with tiny flint or perhaps more probably chert flakes)^[[,]] as were also in all liklihood the circular perforations in the stone knives and in
