As the name of this particular sub genre suggests, StonePunk stories are set primarily in the Stone Age or a similar society.

Novels in this genre are many and various — this is a subgenre that predates steampunk by almost 100 years. Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of The Land that Time Forgot, was a stonepunk writer before punk was punk. And then there's the Jean Auel "Earth's Children" series, starting with Clan of the Cave Bear, which is all about the development of stone-age technologies and a girl who can see a future packed with planes and cars when she takes drugs. Crucial stonepunk flicks include Cro Magnons, Neanderthals, and/or dinosaurs: One Million Years BC (Raquel Welsh as stone-age girl!), King Kong, Encino Man, andGodzilla are just a few of the many classics.

Stonepunk focuses on pre-technological developments in pre-historic times, its juxtapositions of the modern world with the primitive, and the effects of an early form of 'advanced' technology on society, like The Flintstones, based on primitive materials such as rock, fire, clay, rope, wood and water. Unlike most classic Cyber Punk or Steam Punk influenced fiction like Clock Punk, the Stone Age supplies the inspiration behind a modified form of technology based on the materials provided by the natural elements and surrounding environment. Bamboo Technology is common.