Day 91. The Quern Stone.

Today we will move further back into history, and look at some of the relics the earliest inhabitants of Preston left behind.

This piece of a quern stone was found in a field near Preston, and likely dates to the Iron Age or Roman period. A quantity of pottery shards from the Iron Age and Roman periods have been found in the locality.

People have harvested and eaten seeds and grains for tens of millennia, but our teeth and digestive systems aren't capable of extracting their full nutritional value. So human ingenuity had to provide a solution. At first, stones or wood were used to pound the grain into easily digestible flour. Then the quern stone was developed.

The grain was placed on a smooth, slightly curved stone and ground back and forth with a second stone. This was a woman's job, and the 'daily grind' would take several hours each day. The importance of the task was such that the phrase remains in common use today. Analysis of skeletons from the period repeatedly reveal damage to the lower spine, from the endless repetition of this action. 

Following the quern, a hand-operated forerunner of the rotary mill was then adopted; grain was poured between two stones and the women only had to turn a handle for an hour or so to produce their flour. Then a mechanical mill, using wind or water-power, delegated the task to one man in each community: the miller (see Day 2).

This quern may have been used by some of the first women to settle in Preston, around 2000 years ago. The stone was eventually discarded – perhaps broken, perhaps replaced by a better method. It then lay in the soil for centuries until chance caused it to be ploughed to the surface.