Encyclopedia > Hammerstone

  Article Content

Hammerstone

In archaeology, a hammerstone is a hard cobble used to strike lithic flakes off a lump of tool stone during the process of lithic reduction. Often, a hammerstone is made of a material such as limestone or quartzite, is ovoid in shape (to better fit the human hand) and develops telltale battering on the ends. This technology was of major importance to prehistoric cultures[?] who had yet to learn to work metal; today, however, the use of hammerstones is mostly limited to flintknappers[?] and others who wish to develop a better understanding of how stone tools were made.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Springs, New York

... 29.7% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.2% are married couples living together, 8.9% have a female householder with no husband present, and 34.9% are ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 47 ms