What might "tangible artifacts" tell us about the shang?

When ancient cities get lost in China, they get lost in places like Anyang. The ebbs and flows of 20th-century history rushed across this part of the Yellow River plain, leaving their traces like so much jumbled driftwood. Outside of Anyang stands the tomb of warlord Yuan Shikai, who briefly seized control of the nation in the 1910s. Anyang's new downtown—white tile, blue glass—is a monument to another conqueror, the modernization of post-reform China. Wedged between the tomb and the town, there's an old airstrip that was built by Japanese imperialists during their occupation in the 1930s.

the completion of the erie canal spurred the first great westward movement of american settlers, gave access to the rich land and resources west of the appalachians and made new york the preeminent commercial city in the united states.