It has been long thought that man first used diamond in India, around the time of Christ, based on the record of documents from India in the latter half of the first millennium, BC. There certainly did not seem to be any evidence from earlier historical periods, let alone prehistoric times. However, we have uncovered evidence that the neolithic Chinese were using diamonds to polish a special group of ceremonial stone burial axes as early as 2500 BC, placing the earliest known use of diamond two thousand years before the mineral is known to have been used elsewhere.
