A Neolithic quern measuring 424mm, a shallow dish working area having a white chalk surface stained with a pink overlay of sandy type deposit, this from the desert site. The base or external body of the stone exhibiting worn smooth makers tooling marks. The quern has suffered a little in antiquity, review the images above showing the worn damage to one part of the edge of the quern. The interior grinding or mixing face slightly dished following the whole form of the stone quern. Created from a fine-grained light green stone stained with a reddish sandy material of the desert floor, the smoother shallow working surface heavily encrusted contrasting a smoother worn outer surface.

The skill required to form this unique object was considerable, the object exhibits quality and confidence of a hand used to create a fine and beautiful object from the earth's materials. When one considers this would have been achieved with other basic stone implements one can truly admire the maker's skills. Thus the hand in prehistory here manufactured an everyday utilitarian form, which a today is an object curated and to be admired.

The Capsian culture was a Mesolithic culture centred in the Maghreb, which lasted from about 10,000 to 6,000 BCE. It was named after the town of Gafsa in Tunisia, which was Capsa in Roman times. The Neolithic Stone Age is defined for the age where Neanderthals created and brought agriculture into our way of life, the nomadic hunter-gatherer era was no more. This occurred around 15,000 - 2,000 BC the ideas and advancement of farming, possibly the first sightings of livestock crossed the Channel and arrived in England. The Neolithic age was the progression of behavioural and cultural characteristics, including the use of wild and domestic crops and animals.

A large Quern Grinding Stone of the typical Neolithic period (Capsian culture), form. Discovered on an open site find in the western Sahara ténéré, North Africa.

Type: Neolithic grinding stone.
Age: Neolithic, Capsian Tradition, 8,500 to 6,500 BC.
Origin: Northern Sahara Desert, North Africa.

Quern measurements.
Height: 5.0 cm
Width: 28.9 cm
Length: 42.4 cm

Weight: 6.100 Kg