File:Pestle (profile) (FindID 624937).jpg

English: Small fine-grained granite pestle, cylindrical in profile and circular in plan and section, with two convex ends. The pestle has been worked by pounding at both ends, probably on a hard surface, resulting in considerable abrasion and the loss of material in the order of a centimetre (Dr Roger Taylor pers comm). The length of the tool still fits perfectly within a hand's grip. There are dark grey patches on the surface of the pestle and fine grains of felspar and mica. The pestle would have been used with a mortar or cupped stone, but this tool was found on its own in the field, in an area where other Bronze Age material has been found.

An example of a small mortar and a cupped pebble that may have been used as a nutcracker have been found at the Later Bronze Age site of Callestick, Perranzabuloe, as illustrated in Jones (2002) on pages 29 & 32, Figs.12-13, Nos.80 & 87.

Walford (1994) illustrates a pestle or hammer stone from the Callington area on page 11, Fig.8, which was found near to a cup-marked stone which may have been used as a mortar and dates from the Early Bronze Age (Walford, 1994, 12).

Jones and Taylor (2010) illustrate similar sized cylindrical pestles, derived from a river cobble of micaceous sandstone and a gabbroic greenstone beach cobble, from the Middle Bronze Age and Late Bronze Age contexts at Scarcewater, St Stephens, on pages 122 & 129, Figs.60 & 66, Nos.236 & 622.