A hammerstone is often a long symmetric pock-marked tool of quartzite or shock-resistant granite and basalt. Used most frequently for stone-knapping, splitting cores and thinning large core flakes, hammerstones could also have been used for any tasks where hammering was needed, like tent pegs.They usually have round ends, one often larger than the other, and one or both pock-marked from hammering. Some are pockmarked equatorially midway. Hammerstones were used by the Chipewyan until they stopped stone-knapping, with mundane tasks like tent pegging done by steel axes in the 18th Century. Their Taltheilei ancestors and their predecessors, the ASTt, Shield Archaic and Northern Plano, used a variety of hammerstones, but most are quite similar due to their simple function and ready access of river cobbles. They are simple tools-of-the-moment like chi-thos, such that hundreds of discarded surface ones are culturally-unassigned. By number and culture, from earliest to latest, hammerstones include 13 NP, 4 SA, 1 ASTt and 8 ET, 6 MT and 18 LT.
Of NP hammerstones, one was unipolar, 8 bipolar, and 4 bipolar and equatorially pocked, the last apparently of rare usage as only one other hammerstone (MT) had both. Half are ovoid in plan and section, with half as many again of round plan and section. There was a obvious tendency in NP for roundness, like chi-thos. Of striking non-conformity with other traditions, NP hammerstones are not only equatorially pocked but huge. Of 4 SA pocked hammerstones, 2 each were uni- & bipolarly pocked. Half have square/rectangular sections, with one each of triangular and planoconvex sections. Half have rectangular plans, with one each of tearshaped and ovoid plans. A single ASTt hammerstone was a unipolarly pocked pebble of triangular plan and square/rectangular section. Of 32 Taltheilei ones, 8 ET are uni- (6) & bipolarly (2) pocked, and none have equatorial pocking. ET ones have rectangular (4), tear-shaped (2) and ovoid (1) plans, and many section types. Four of 6 MT hammerstones have unipolar pocking, a fifth with bipolar and equatorial pocking, and the last with pocking on one face and end. Five have rectangular plans and many sections, reflecting the cultural transition from ET. 18 LT hammerstones are halved into uni- & bipolar pocking. Half have rectangular plans and sections, the remainder with round, ovoid and tear-shaped plans of various sections.
Generally, hammerstones change from huge round unipolarly pocked cobbles in NP to small mixed uni- & bipolarly pocked partly rectangular pebbles in SA. Diversity continues in Taltheilei with a multitude of sections, with most having rectangular plans that unify the tradition. Key traits and variables for cultural comparison are as follows:
Pocking: 0=no polar pocking; 1=unipolar; 2=bipolar; 3=equatorial; 4=2 & 3; 5=halved & pocked; 6=1 & 3; 7=side only, but not equatorial.
Section: 0=unknown; 1=round; 2=ovoid; 3=square/rectangular; 4=biconvex (thinner than ovoid); 5=triangular; 6=planoconvex.
Plan: 0=unknown; 1=round; 2=square/rectangular; 3=tearshape; 4=triangular; 5=ovoid/semi-ovoid.
Pockangle: 0=unknown; 1=end; 2=angle; 3=end & angle; 4=end & equatorial.