Other Stone Objects
Stone tools were usually used for stabbing, cutting, scraping, and grinding, but sometimes they served other functions. This gallery includes stone objects of unknown function, or items that do not fit comfortably in the other galleries.
One well-known alternative use for a stone tool is to strike sparks from steel, a legacy that lives on in many modern butane lighters. The stone part of fire-making kits is referred to as the ‘flint’, or ‘strike-a-light’. Stone strike-a-lights date back to at least the Chalcolithic, and Otzi—who died around 5200 BP—carried a strike-a-light fire-making kit. The handles of Danish flint daggers often show damage from their use as strike-a-lights. Flintlock muskets and rifles rely on gunflints to ignite the powder, and the English closely-guarded their efficient methods of gunflint manufacture during the 18th and early 19th centuries. People still use fire-making kits in various parts of the world, and often recycle a prehistoric flake as the flint.
Techniques such as pecking, grinding, cutting, and scraping were used to create bowls out of soft stones, such as steatite or soapstone. These were widely made, including in North America, Africa, Arabia, and Europe. The Vikings used them for cooking pots, and they continue to be the traditional cooking and serving vessel known as a dolsot in Korea. Soapstone had a myriad of other purposes as well, such as making casts for metallurgy and, in North America, to serve as heatable stones for straightening arrow or spear shafts.
