A mano (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

for ''hand'') is a

ground stone In archaeology, ground stone is a category of stone tool formed by the grinding of a coarse-grained tool stone, either purposely or incidentally. Ground stone tools are usually made of basalt, rhyolite, granite, or other cryptocrystalline a ...

tool used with a

metate A metate (or mealing stone) is a type or variety of quern, a ground stone tool used for processing grain and seeds. In traditional Mesoamerican cultures, metates are typically used by women who would grind nixtamalized maize and other organic ...

to process or grind food by hand. It is also known by the

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...

term metlapil.

History

Manos were used in

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

times to process wild seeds, nuts, and other food, generally used with greater frequency in the Archaic period, when people became more reliant upon local wild plant food for their diet. Later, Manos and metates were used to process cultivated

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

.Gibbon, Guy E.; Ames, Kenneth M. (1998
''Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: An Encyclopedia''.
pp. 107, 166. . In its early use in the

American Southwest The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado ...

, the mano and metate were used to grind wild plants. The mano began as a one-handed tool. Once the maize cultivation became more prevalent, the mano became a larger, two-handed tool that more efficiently ground food against an evolved basin or trough metate. Besides food, Manos and metates were used to separate and pulverize

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

from earthen debris and stones. The resulting clay was used for

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

-making.

Grinding process

A Mano, a smooth hand-held stone, is used against a

, typically a large stone with a depression or bowl. The movement of the Mano against the metate consists of a circular, rocking or chopping grinding motion using one or both hands.

Ancient Pueblo People The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, an ...

often set up work rooms, called mealing rooms, that were established with sets of manos and metates for mass grinding efforts. Plog, Stephen. (1997). ''Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest.'' London: Thames and Hudson. p. 80. .

References

External links

{{Prehistoric technology Food grinding tools Lithics Mesoamerican artifacts Mesoamerican cuisine Mexican food preparation utensils Indigenous tools of the Americas Native American cuisine Science and technology in Mesoamerica Stone objects

History

Grinding process

See also

References

Further reading

External links