site Xinzhai is 1750–1530 BCE, which probably only partly covers Erlitou Culture. For details, see Qiu et al., “Youguan Suowei ‘Xia Wenhua’ de Tanshisi Niandai Ceding de Chubu Baogao”; Bagley, “Shang Archaeology,” 137–139; Liu and Chen, The Archaeology of China, 263, 266.

57. As Bagley observed, “elsewhere in the ancient world vessels and other simple metal shapes were invariably made by hammering, a technique far more economical of material. The cast vessels at Erlitou thus represent the first sign of a characteristically extravagant use of metal in China” (“Shang Archaeology,” 141). It is understandable that certain weapons and tools were manufactured by casting, inasmuch as hammering, ingenious method that it was for saving metal, sometimes failed to produce objects of sufficient strength. Yet even simple vessels at Erlitou were also exclusively cast; hammering, like needlework, simply requires and even favors a single skilled craftsman (e.g., Benvenuto Cellini) with one or two assistants working from start to finish. But casting processes, which are more akin to an industry, require extensive teamwork and promote the division of labor. As Bagley remarked, “industrial organization, which has some claim to be a distinguishing feature of later Chinese civilization, may well be a legacy of the bronze foundries” (“Shang Archaeology,” 141–142).

58. As an elaboration of bivalve mold casting, the section-mold process, known to Bronze Age societies everywhere, was not at all unique to Erlitou. For instance, Near Eastern metalsmiths had used it at a much earlier date, but did not truly rely on it because of their predominant use of hammer work and the complementary use of lost-wax casting, the latter mainly used to fabricate complex shapes that were difficult to raise by hammering. For details, see Bagley, “The Beginnings of the Bronze Age,” 70; Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, 16.

59. Liu and Chen, The Archaeology of China, 272; Bagley, Gombrich among the Egyptians, 11. As perhaps the counterpart of Near Eastern statues of deities and kings, ritual vessels in early China must have held considerable symbolic meaning for socio-political purposes; they may have been used to feed the deceased ancestor-deities in exchange for power and protection.

60. For details, see Hwang, “Maixiang Zhongqi Shidai,” 582–587. As Bunker inferred, the hollow, bulbous vessel legs of certain types of pottery in prehistoric China “could be individually molded,” and this kind of “modular production” could facilitate and is manifested in the “complex system