The excavation of the Shigudun Site in Tongling County, Anhui

The excavation of Shigudun site in Tongling, Anhui yielded a rich assemblage of material remains that included features like house foundations, ash pits, ditches, wells and a great number of postholes, and artifacts like pottery, hard stamped pottery, proto-porcelain, stone and bronze objects, and metallurgical debris. The relative chronology of the artifacts indicates continuous occupation of the site with no obvious developmental gap. The cultural characteristics expressed in the material remains are complex. The excavation, therefore, is an important addition to the database for the study of the past cultural characteristics for the region south of the Yangtze River in Anhui Province. The finding of remains attributable to bronze metallurgy is rare in the prehistoric archaeology of China. It throws light on the bronze casting technology during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties and opens a window to the production and circulation of bronze objects in the social context of the times.