This stone bowl is typical of what Eastern Woodlands peoples, including the Pocumtucks in the area that is now called Deerfield, Massachusetts, used for cooking and preparing food.  The bowl, filled with a soup or stew, would be placed into or next to a fire.  Smaller stones would be heated in the fire and placed in the container of food to cook it.  This bowl might also have been used as a mortar.  Items, such as nuts, would be placed in it and a pestle would be used to hammer on and/or grind the bowl’s contents into a flour.