Little can be said about coarse stone tools, not least because few have been found. No systematic survey has been undertaken and they can be hard to date precisely when not found in a sealed, datable context. That said, reports on coarse stone tools can be found in several excavation reports such as for the Slackbuie ASDA site (EHG3271; Clarke 2012; Case Study Lower Slackbuie).
Saddle querns are known to have been used during the Neolithic period, although it is also known that their use extended into the Iron Age and overlapped with the use of rotary querns in that period. Close-Brooks described the saddle quern that had been found in the disturbed fill of the passage tomb chamber at Carn Glas, Kilcoy (MHG9014; Close-Brooks 1983; Henshall and Ritchie 2001, 143–6, fig. 33), plus a fragment of a second saddle quern that was found in the infil of the antechamber of the passage tomb at Kilcoy South (MHG9017; Close-Brooks 1983; Henshall and Ritchie 2001, 153–7, fig. 33). A further fragment of a saddle quern was found on the side of the cairn at Kilcoy III (MHG9015; Close-Brooks 1983, 284–5) and was thought by Anthony Woodham, who excavated at Kilcoy, to have been gathered from a nearby field. The three Kilcoy examples could be of Neolithic date, and an investigation of the area around the monuments is recommended to check whether any traces of Neolithic settlement may exist. One indisputably Early Neolithic example of a saddle quern is from the pre-long cairn phase of activity at Camster Long, Caithness (MHG1809; Davidson and Henshall 1991, fig. 22).
