It now appears that somewhere around 2000 or 1800 B.C. that the Shang Dynasty began to cast bronzes. So this signals a movement away from the Stone Age, into the Bronze Age. Like most cultures that invent bronze or begin to use bronze in an early stage it's put to weaponry.
What sets China apart in it's early bronze industry is that they begin to devote a great deal of attention to intricate detail and they begin casting a variety of things beyond just weapons. They make useful implements; there are chariot hardware and fittings that we see here, finials for staffs, but it's really the ceremonial vessels, vessels cast in a variety of different shapes, intended for different uses, in ancestral ceremony and other ceremonies of state that really distinguishes the Chinese from all other bronze cultures. It was at this moment that bronze itself, in terms of these elaborately cast vessels becomes an art form. It moves from the utilitarian to something aesthetic to something very meaningful, deeply religious to the people, not only to the rulers but to the Chinese civilization of Shang in general.
