In this storm there fell so much snow, with such bitter cold air, that we could scarce see one another for the snow. We could not open our eyes to handle our ropes and sayles, the snow being above halfe a foote deepe uppon the hatches of oure shippe. This did so wette thorow oure poore marriners clothes, that each man had scarce one drie threade on his backe. This breed no small sickness amongst the fleete.

(George Best, sixteenth-century English sailor)

These were perhaps the most gadget minded people of prehistory. With the blessing of permafrost (land which is frozen all the year round) we know virtually as much about their possessions as we do about those of modern Inuit.

(M. Maxwell, Prehistory of the Eastern Arctic, 1985)

James Green: Native peoples of the Americas, Oxford University Press, 1993, page 10 f.