having the function of small, mobile, hand-operated mills that don't require electricity or fuel to operate. Large wooden mortars and wooden pestles would predate and lead to the invention of butterchurns, as domestication of livestock and use of dairy (during the Neolithic) came well after the mortar and pestle. Butter would be churned from cream or milk in a wooden container with a long wooden stick, very like the use of wooden mortars and pestles. History Mortars and pestles were invented in the Stone Age, when humans found that processing food and various other materials by grinding and crushing into smaller particles allowed for improved use and various advantages, such as hard grains could be cooked and digested easier if ground first, grog would vastly improve fired clay and larger objects such as blocks of salt would be much easier to handle and use when ground and pulverized into smaller pieces. Various stone mortars and pestles have been found, while wooden or clay ones would perish much easier during the course of time. Scientists have found ancient mortars and pestles in Southwest Asia that date back to approximately 35000 BC. Stone mortars and pestles have also been used by the Kebaran culture (Levant with Sinai) from 22000 to 18000 BC to crush grains and other plant material. The Kebaran mortars that have been found are sculpted, slightly conical bowls of porous stone, and the pestles are made of a smoother type of stone. Another Stone Age example are the rock mortars in the Raqefet Cave in Israel, which are natural cavities in the cave floors, used by Late Natufians around 10000 BC to grind cereals for brewing beer in the cavities. These rock mortars are large enough for a person to stand upright by them and crush the cereals inside the cavity with a long wooden pestle. Ancient Africans, Sumerians, Egyptians, Polynesians, Native Americans, Chinese, Indians, Greeks, Celts and countless other people used mortars and pestles for processing materials and substances for cooking, arts, cosmetics, simple chemicals, ceramics and medicine. Since the 14th century, bronze mortars became more popular than stone ones, especially for use in alchemy and early chemistry. Bronze mortars would become more elaborate than stone ones, and had the advantage to be harder, and were easily cast with handles, knobs for handling and spouts for easier pouring. However, the big disadvantage was that bronze would react with