>>14I would bet that the association between women and working with textiles comes partly from women weaving fibers together to form linen and the like to soak up cooter fluids. I've heard historians referring to reusable menstrual cloth much like reusable diapers, so as far back as there was cloth there was probably menstrual cloths. Before that maybe they got creative with other shit like feathers. I know in rural India where cheap sanitary napkins are being introduced, there was a typical practice of shoving fucking dirt up there, but that's also in a culture where the whole subject is very taboo.
>>2090% of the idea that hunter-gatherers were ooga booga cave men is the lack of hard evidence of their sophistication. Prior to monumental stone architecture, most of what they made and built disappeared completely over the ages. Shit, the idea that people were primarily cave-dwellers probably mostly comes from the fact that caves shield physical evidence from the elements. The kind of people who lived in caves back then were probably the kind of people who live in caves today - social rejects and those who were too lazy/stupid to build a longhouse or whatever. They were just as smart as us, but had less of the kind of knowledge we do, and more knowledge of how to survive in a less altered (but still altered) environment.