[Opinion column written by Dr Edward Harris ] The Stone Age generally ended some five thousand years ago with the invention of forging tools in iron. Prior to that, implements were made of stone and probably of timber, although the latter is less obvious in the archaeological record, as it tends to rot. Sadly perhaps, we have never declared a “Timber Age”, but from earliest times wood continues to be a major factor of life on Earth and of the creations made by people.
Imagine, indeed, what Bermudian evolution and culture would have been without Bermuda cedar: no houses, no boats, no branches and leaves to consume all that nasty carbon dioxide we are told is going to kill the planet. Of course, we have had our own Stone Age with that lovely soft Bermuda rock that was shaped into blocks to build our homes, the roofing slates of which were supported by timbers of local cedar. Now we are in the less attractive Concrete Age, but still some new houses are well within the lovely Bermuda idiom.
Let’s not digress further, as we are here today to look at a remarkable piece of technology in wood, a mortar and pestle set, such tools probably invented before the Stone Age, as timber was easier to work than rock. In 2023, the National Museum published a book entitled John Lyman’s The Old Bermudas, written in part by that Canadian artist, a nephew of Annie [née Lyman], the wife of James Morgan of “Southlands” fame. Back in 1913–15, during visits to his aunt, John imagined th.