The oldest known tool for making flour

Quern stone used for making flour

9,500–9,000 BC
Abu Hureyra, Syria

The oldest known tool for making flour found in the Middle East

This quern stone, used for grinding grain to make flour, was found at Abu Hureyra, an ancient settlement on the banks of the river Euphrates in modern Syria. The settlement began as a hunter-gatherer camp and developed into a village occupied by some of the world's earliest farmers. Finding an uninterrupted chain of evidence for this important transformation from hunting to farming in one place is rare.

Farming changes the way people live and how their societies are organised and this quern is an important record of such change. It is one of the oldest known documents of this transition in the world.

Seen from above, the quern is shaped like a saddle. It is made from basalt, a rock brought to the settlement from about 60 miles (80 kilometres) away and hammered into shape. As it is so heavy, the quern would be used on the ground. Packed round with small stones to keep it firmly in place, it was used for many hours of hard work. The narrow end probably touched the operator’s knees. Seeds, grains and pulses such as lentils were placed on the quern surface and then rubbed to flour using an oblong rubbing stone. The quern surface is dished and worn smooth by the prolonged grinding. The flour produced could be used for porridge, pastes or bread.

Skeletons found in burials at Abu Hureyra reveal that grinding was women’s work. Evidence of osteoarthritis and injuries to the toes, knees, hips and lower back caused by repetitive work in a kneeling position occur almost exclusively on the bones of females.

Growing and harvesting plants for their seeds necessitated a settled way of life and was a big change from simply gathering wild plant foods. This change occurred at Abu Hureyra because there were wild grasses and pulses in the area which could be gradually improved by cultivation.

 

Iron Age, about 400-300 BC
From Burton Agnes, East Yorkshire, England

A revolutionary domestic appliance

This is the top part of an Iron Age rotatory quern. Quern stones such as this one would have been found on almost every Iron Age farm and village. They were used to grind grains of wheat, barley or rye into flour to make bread and other foods.
A rotatory quern consisted of two quern stones, one on top of the other. The lower stone did not move; the top stone was turned around a wooden axle that passed up through the hole in its centre. A slot on the top stone, which can be seen in this example, was fitted with a wooden handle used to turn the stone around. The hard, rough surfaces of the quern stones moving against each other ground the grains into flour.
The rotatory quern was an important new technology that probably transformed daily life in Iron Age Britain. The idea for a rotatory quern arrived in Britain in the middle of the Iron Age (about 400-300 BC) and quickly spread. Before this time people used saddle querns. The new rotatory querns made flour-making much quicker and easier.
The hard stone used for quern stones was cut from particular quarries across Britain. It is often possible to identify the location of the quern's source by examining small samples of stone under a microscope. This allows archaeologists to reconstruct the, often long, journeys that querns travelled when they were traded or exchanged.