structural:expansion, stylistic:tone, stylistic:style_transfer
Stone tools

The shapes of stone tools found at Nok sites change little throughout the entire span of the Nok Culture. What tends to strike researchers is a lack of cutting tools. Apart from stone axes, no tools with a cutting edge have been found. Projectile points made of either iron or stone are also absent from Nok sites.

Grinding tools are very common at Nok sites. They are rarely preserved in one piece, but can still illustrate the different shapes and sizes of tools used throughout the Nok Culture. Grinding stones were made of quartzite, granitic, or metamorphic rock. At the site of Ungwar Kura, grinding stones seem to have been placed in a certain order, and at the site of Ido huge grinding slabs were arranged in an upright position with pots and stone beads next to them. This context is assumed to have been ritual in some way. Most of the grinders are merely hand-sized. Throughout Nok sites, there is an abundance of grinding slabs but there seems to be a low number of hand stones. It is possible that members of the Nok Culture used these grinders until they reached a certain state of wear, and then repurposed them as pestles.

Ground stone axes were another tool commonly used by the Nok. They were typically made from fine-grained volcanic rock (siliceous rock is also sometimes seen), and may have been used in food preparation. These ax blades tend to be smallish in size, the largest reaching 20 centimeters. Stone balls are found at almost every Nok site and are approximately palm-sized. They were probably used as hammerstones or for roughening the surface of a grinding stone. Not all of them are ball shaped, however, and many have chipping marks all over or at least in one place. These stone balls likely would have served as mobile grinding stones.

Stone rings have also been found at Nok Culture sites. They are normally found as fragments but can be identified as rings because of their flat, oval or triangular cross-sections and their shapes. These stone rings are very rare and their purpose is unknown, but their use as currency or a medium of exchange has been suggested. Another rare find is stone beads, which are typically found as if strung on strings. Beads tend to be carefully made out of hard siliceous rock such as quartz, chalcedony, jasper, or carnelian. There are three different bead shapes: cylindrical, which is the most common shape, as well as rod and ring-shaped.