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M. W. WELCH
and improved the primitive method of firing so much that well-shaped vessels of fairly hard clay, which may be considered as ancestors of porcellaneous ware, were actually produced. Supports of refractory clay evidently used for the pots in the kiln are proof of this great progress.
The pottery found in site I and II is pretty uniform in composition and appearance, and I would say typical of SAK. The mixture of clay is very fine; the potsherds quite thin and hard. When struck they give off a fairly fine "ping". So far, no other kind of pottery has been found on the sites. There has, for instance, been none of the rough and sandy ware found on Lamma and Lantao, which is crumbly and very thick.
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On the potsherds I have found, there are three types of SAK pressed patterns. Though there are no complete pots, I have been able to put together enough of one to conclude that it was fashioned in the same manner as those found by Maglioni in the Hoi-fung area: the pot shaped and patterned first, the foot added later.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of my site is what I have not found. There has, for instance, been no bronze. Maglioni makes the point that absolutely no bronze or other objects belonging to a metallic period have been discovered in any of the pure SAK sites. Nearby, however, he came upon numerous large villages of the later (PAT) period, often with bronze pieces, and he has a theory that the spreading of the PAT culture was the reason for the dispersion of the SAK people.
I have found nothing that can be assigned to PAT. This is in contrast to other sites in Hong Kong, where a few SAK pieces have been found, but always mixed in with a much larger number of PAT artifacts. My sites are not only rich in SAK, both implements and pottery, but they are pure SAK. They are, indeed, the first pure SAK sites to be found in the Colony.
There are two other things I want to mention. One is the type of very roughly shaped large tools that I have found in groups on all three sites near kaolin deposits, frequently embedded in a lump of hardened kaolin. I have tentatively separated these tools into eight categories according to their shape. Five are
“Archaeology in South China" by Raphael Maglioni, University of Manila Journal of East Asiatic Studies, Vol. II, No. 1 October, 1952.