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<< News >> Stone Age tools may have derived lustre from diamond

Submitted by Andy B on Saturday, 19 February 2005  Page Views: 2395

DiscoveriesCountry: China Ancient Chinese people may have used diamonds to polish their stone axes to mirrorlike finishes, according to a new analysis. Other than pushing back by several thousand years the date for the first known use of diamonds, the findings also suggest that Neolithic Chinese societies were more technologically advanced than previous studies had shown.

Some sections of the axe surfaces are almost as smooth as some silicon wafers used to make computer chips, says Peter Lu, a physicist at Harvard University. "Somehow, Stone Age people . . . were able to make something smooth enough that you could pattern a circuit on it," he says. In an attempt to discover how the polishing was done, Lu obtained four ceremonial burial axes from the tombs of two Neolithic Chinese societies—the Liangzhu culture and the Sanxingcun culture—that once inhabited parts of southern China near what is now Shanghai. The stone axes had been dated by others to between 4000 and 2500 B.C.

More, with picture: Science News.

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"Stone Age tools may have derived lustre from diamond" | Login/Create an Account | 1 comment
  
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Sanxingcun culture grave excavation reveals eternal embrace. by DrewParsons on Sunday, 23 May 2010
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4,200 year-old Sanxingcun culture grave excavation reveals eternal embrace. News item resourced by coldrum

Loving couples always wish to die on the same day, and a couple who lived 4,200 years ago in the Sanxing Village of Mimou Township, Qingbaijiang District, fulfilled such a wish.

The Chengdu Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology recently discovered an ancient grave during an excavation on a large prehistoric cultural site, in which a couple was found laying and hugging each other. The bones of the "oldest" couple are clearly visible. Excavation work also discovered numerous exquisite stone vessels, porcelains, housing ruins as well as graves dating form China's ancient Shang Dynasty.

The Sanxingcun site, located in the sixth group of the Sanxing Village in Mimou Township, Qingbaijiang section of the Chengdu-Mianyang-Leshan inter-city railway line, covers an area of about 28,000 sqm, through which the Chengdu-Mianyang Highway runs.

In May 2004, the Chengdu Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology excavated part of the site's western side. Archaeologists believe that the Sanxingcun site was once a large ancient settlement in the Chengdu Plain in China's ancient Shang and Zhou dynasties. There have always been settlers on this land over the past 4,000-plus years.

Plenty of porcelains and stone vessels were excavated from the Sanxingcun site, such as flat-bottomed pots and jars with high handles that people in the period of the Sanxingdui culture used to hold items and food. An ivory pottery was found that exactly resembles a bird's head and is engraved with curved lines similar to the lines on the bronze vessels dug from the Sanxingdui Relics. Polished tools–stone axes, chisels, spears and knives still looked very fine and sharp.
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/6931782.html



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