Stones from the Bronze Age: Raw materials and exploration of the stone artifacts from Panlongcheng

Abstract

Scholars often overlook stone artifacts in the Bronze Age, but they are important because they remained critical in daily life, agriculture, and other craft production as they were in the earlier Neolithic era, and the production and use of stone artifacts remained a complicated component of the fabric of Bronze Age society. To reveal the complexity of stone artifacts in Bronze Age, this study will use petrographic analysis and geological data to analyze the strategies people at the Bronze Age site of Panlongcheng 盘龙城 used to manipulate stone. We conclude that the majority of raw material found at this site came from the foothills of the Dabie Mountain (Dabieshan 大别山) to the north of this site, and the choice of materials does not seem to have a strong connection with the function of stone tools.