Artifact of the Week: Cooking Stone

Cooking stones were heated in embers and then placed into pots with a stick inserted into the hole. The heat would cook the food in the pot.

The people of the Late Prehistoric Tradition did not have (nor need) the wheel or use large animals as beasts of burden. Thus they did not have cultivated domestic agriculture as we know it. However, they would burn grasslands and transplant elderberries and other plants. The local inhabitants did creatively use several hundred native plants for medicinal and religious purposes.

They were traders and had an extensive network of trails that allowed them to trade for obsidian from the Imperial Desert, ceramic objects from the Phoenix area, and shells from the Gulf of California.

Date: Late Prehistoric Tradition (3,000 ya – 300 ya)
Material Class: Lithics

Want to learn more? Visit the exhibit By Land and By Sea currently on view at the Center.