This working replica recreates the traditional hard stone quern, its upper and lower wheels turned against each other by a wooden pin, with grain poured into the centre to be ground between them.
Neolithic and Upper Palaeolithic peoples used millstones of this kind to grind grains, nuts, rhizomes and other plant foods for consumption, relying on saddlestones or rotary querns turned by hand well before mechanised milling existed. The same basic devices were also used to grind pigments and metal ores prior to smelting, making the quern one of the most versatile and enduring tools in early human technology.
Deepeeka’s reproduction is inspired by quern stones held in the Whithorn Museum, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, part of our historical camp range.
