Unfortunately this made me second guess my agreement with Liu's studies when he made the note that these artifacts were based on "inferred functions" rather than on concrete dating and categorizing.
The first note Liu makes about the change in the status of what having jades means, was in 4000 B.C. He states that jades found in burials were correlated with a more rich grave good finding, which led to a more prominent person being buried. This is where jade seems to have been specialized considerably (possibly by loss of raw materials to make it or from loss of actual manufacturers of it) enough to make a status statement. Through interpretation of ancient texts that were from the time of these state statement making jades, Liu and other anthropologists argue that all the different kinds of jades have a spiritual meaning, and were possibly used in ritual practices. This parallel between what the texts from ancient China and the later meaning of these jades suggests that prominent ritual leaders had them primarily. Other jades found with birds on them (as well as pottery that was found around the same time) linked to texts imply that birds were deities religiously.
The second prestige good that Liu notes is the emergence of white pottery in the Erlitou period. Only red and black pottery had been found before, but heating at a much higher temperature made this white pottery different. Liu uses the fact that during phases III and IV of the Erlitou, white pottery starts occurring only in larger more prominent burials. This was at a time when bronze was already only used in elite burials as well. When Liu goes on to discuss the significance of Bronze in its early stages, he makes a point that when it first emerged, only jade and stone was used in elite burials, and bronze didn't have much significance. .
In his conclusion, Li Liu sums up that prestige goods were "the products of minds as well as hands".