hammerstone

plural hammerstones

1. archaeologyA type of stone used to hit or strike in a similar way to a modern-day hammer.

   On the other hand, in the same crannog, a hammerstone broken in two was found, each half in a different place, as were two parts of a figurine at Dumbuck.

   1905, Andrew Lang, The Clyde Mystery

   1 more example

   Striking a hand-held isotropic block or cobble (a core) with a hammerstone initiates a cone-shaped crack at roughly 60° from the axis of force, exemplified by the hole in a plate glass window made by a pellet gun (18, 19 ).

   2001 March 2, Stanley H. Ambrose, “Paleolithic Technology and Human Evolution”, in Science, volume 291, number 5509, →DOI, pages 1748–1753