May be unrelated, but it's also kinda funny how to cut / process / shape stone and rock you need a crap load of water, all the drills and saws for stone are wet in a way.
>The models estimated that Oldowan stone tools originated 2.617-2.644 million years ago, 36,000 to 63,000 years earlier than current evidence. The Acheulean’s origin was pushed back further by at least 55,000 years to 1.815-1.823 million years ago.
https://www.kent.ac.uk/news/science/28246/the-worlds-earlies...
>Statistical inference of earlier origins for the first flaked stone technologies
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...
But yeah, you're completely right about the chisel. Hammer and chisel is how we've processed rocks for most of history (all the way back to flint knapping).
Wet processing for tile/stone is really only about 100 years old, since we didn't have a usable cutting abrasive until diamond blades came around in the late 1800s.
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All that aside, the problem with a hammer & chisel is that it's hard to be precise. It's not impossible, but it's definitely a skill requiring mastery.
If we expand the scope a little and include ceramics - then yes, we did need quite a bit of water.
Brick, Clay, Cement, etc - they were all good alternatives to chiseling stone to get a very hard, stone-like material in a very specific shape, and they all require good amounts of water.
And other than the cost of the tools, there is one thing harder to drill than a rock, and that's a rock with the previous drill bit's carbide insert stuck at the bottom of the hole!