Stone carving is one of the earliest trades in civilization's history. Owing to the permanence of the material, stone work has survived which was created during our prehistory. The Ancients heavily relied on the stone carvers to build the most impressive and long lasting monuments to their civilizations. The Egyptians built their pyramids, the civilizations of Central America had their step pyramids, the Persians their palaces, the Greeks their temples, and the Romans their public works and wonders.

Castle building was an entire industry for the medieval stone carvers. When the Western Roman Empire fell, building in dressed stone decreased in much of Western Europe, and there was a resulting increase in timber-based construction. Stone work experienced a resurgence in the 9th and 10th centuries in Europe, and by the 12th century religious fervour resulted in the construction of thousands of impressive churches and cathedrals in stone across Western Europe.

The peak of stone sculpting occurred during the period of Romanesque art, followed by the Gothic architecture period that gave birth the greatest collection of three-dimensional religious stone pieces ever seen in the history of sculpture. The Easter Island in Polynesia is a home to particularly stunning pieces of Oceanic art that includes 887 of Moai monolithic human figures, also known as Easter Island Heads. Carved out of the volcanic tuff between years 1250 and 1500CE by the Rapa Nui people, these monumental pieces present the living faces of deified ancestors. A certain decline occurred after this peak period, but stone remained one of the foremost mediums for large-scale outdoor works.

Up until the 20th century, almost all greatest sculptors of the modern era have practiced with stone before progressing onto other materials such as bronze, metal or wood. The artistic practice of the 20th century completely reconsidered, redefined and reworked the very concept of the sculpture by introducing abstraction, but it also brought new approaches to working in stone. Introduced by Constantin Brancusi in 1906, the process of direct carving sparked a revolution in the tradition of carved sculpture. This practice was soon adopted by other prominent artists such as Barbara Hepworth, Jacob Epstein, and Henry Moore.