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The pictures here are personal surface finds. Pestles had many uses and shapes. Their use started here in Archaic time when Native people started foraging for nuts and seeds and used them to crush these food stuffs into flour. The invention of mortars and pestles seems related to that of Quern-stones, which use a similar principle of naturally indented, durable, hard stone bases and mallets of stone or wood to process food and plant materials, clay, or minerals by stamping, crushing, pulverizing and grinding. Mortars and pestles anticipate modern blenders and grinders and can be described as having the function of small, mobile, hand-operated mills that do not require electricity or fuel to operate.
Large wooden mortars and wooden pestles would predate and lead to the invention of butter churns, as domestication of livestock and use of dairy (during the Neolithic) came well after the mortar and pestle. They are still used today.
1st up is a Bell Pestle. 2nd is a Hoof Pestle. 3rd & 4th are round types the larger ones were used with a large hollowed out log. Pict 5 are some broken pieces, and last Pict. are some odd types one is grooved and may not be a Pestle at all the other two in that Picture are most likely heavy hammers. Kim
Large wooden mortars and wooden pestles would predate and lead to the invention of butter churns, as domestication of livestock and use of dairy (during the Neolithic) came well after the mortar and pestle. They are still used today.
1st up is a Bell Pestle. 2nd is a Hoof Pestle. 3rd & 4th are round types the larger ones were used with a large hollowed out log. Pict 5 are some broken pieces, and last Pict. are some odd types one is grooved and may not be a Pestle at all the other two in that Picture are most likely heavy hammers. Kim
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