TUNG KWU ISLAND
73
ment (cord-marked, stamped, or plain) or style (ancient or proto-historic, and hard, glazed pieces attributable to historic dynasties).
Another classification could be made according to the probable use of all specimens collected, including those picked up loose: this would naturally be more comprehensive. But as much has been written about the lack of stratigraphy in our Hong Kong sites, it is very desirable that where it exists it should be described and its results deduced.
1. Coarse cord-marked pottery: (See Plate 4)
These pieces were most numerous in the sectors on each side of the central sandy isthmus, but a few were found even in the northern sectors on the west beach. Almost all found in these sectors (L, M, N, O and P) had a matrix of rainwash from the hill behind, and lay at greater depths than pieces from the sandy isthmus. The deepest ranged from 200 to 220 cm. from the surface, with a scattering of others between 180 and 200 cm., and a few higher still, but none above 140 cm.
Above 140 cm. in the other sectors (A to K) the corded pottery becomes very common indeed, with a regular stratum at 122 cm. which must have been a habitation layer,* with thinner layers at 137 cm., and others at 112 and 95 cm., and some scattered sherds between. Hardly any were found above 90 cm.
One of the pieces from sector A was very elaborately decorated with cord-marks; it was from 122 cm., the main culture layer, and resembles a few others found loose. Such ornament on a jar, which this one was, like the others found, seems to indicate that they belonged to a person of importance, or were used for special purposes. Several more pieces with elaborate cord-mark impressions were found loose on the beaches.
This type of coarse pottery seems to have been in everyday use on the site, as cooking pots, store jars, drinking cups and beakers, and as stem cups, of which one stem with the attached piece of the bottom was found. None were found in a position making it possible to infer that they were used as food vessels in a burial, though two vessels of coarse pottery, both decorated with stamped designs, were found in proved graves at Shek Pik†.
*See Plate 6.
† See W. Schofield, "The proto-historic site of the Hong Kong Culture at Shek Pik, Lantau, Hong Kong" at pp. 235-305 of Proceedings of the Third Congress of Pre-historians of the Far East, Singapore, Government Printing House, 1940.