250px, Stone slab in east-central California used to grind acorns In

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

, a grinding slab is a

ground stone In archaeology, ground stone is a category of stone tool formed by the grinding of a coarse-grained tool stone, either purposely or incidentally. Ground stone tools are usually made of basalt, rhyolite, granite, or other cryptocrystalline and ...

artifact generally used to grind plant materials into usable size, though some slabs were used to shape other ground stone artifacts. Some grinding stones are portable; others are not and, in fact, may be part of a stone outcropping. Grinding slabs used for plant processing typically acted as a coarse surface against which plant materials were ground using a portable hand stone, or mano ("hand" in Spanish). Variant grinding slabs are referred to as

metate A metate (or mealing stone) is a type or variety of quern, a ground stone tool used for processing grain and seeds. In traditional Mesoamerican cultures, metates are typically used by women who would grind nixtamalized maize and other organi ...

s or querns, and have a ground-out bowl. Like all ground stone artifacts, grinding slabs are made of large-grained materials such as granite, basalt, or similar

tool stone In archaeology, a tool stone is a type of stone that is used to manufacture stone tools, or tools that use stone as raw material. Generally speaking, tools that require a sharp edge are made using cryptocrystalline materials that fracture i ...

References

{{Prehistoric technology, state=expanded Archaeological artefact types Lithics Indigenous tools of the Americas Food grinding tools Mesoamerican artifacts