ARCHAEOLOGY IN H.K. AND SOUTH CHINA
163
quartz and jade, and stone beads, adzes and lance heads were discovered. Some of the pottery bore makers' marks, which seemed in some cases to resemble archaic Chinese characters. To deal with the problems raised by these and the ornaments on much of the pottery, the chief of which was a symbol resembling a long f and showing several variations, Prof. Shellshear invited the collaboration of the late Father Finn, S.J., a distinguished scholar in the Regional Seminary at Aberdeen, Hong Kong, and a lecturer at the University of Hong Kong. Father Finn devoted himself thenceforward to a careful study of this site and its culture, and published thirteen papers in the Hong Kong Naturalist on the subject, basing his work on a profound study of archaeological literature in neighbouring countries, Japan, China, Indo-China, the Straits and elsewhere.*
This study was greatly aided by the decision of the Hong Kong Government to have the site excavated at its own expense. In five weeks' work about half the undug portion of the sandbank was excavated to a depth of 6 to 7 feet, and some thousands of pottery fragments, a large number of other objects of stone, quartz, jade, bronze and even two or three partly of iron, were unearthed. Father Finn conducted this excavation, and included the description of the results in his articles.
Father Finn also worked at other sites on Lamma and Hong Kong islands, and during visits to St. John's Island (where St. Francis Xavier died), and the Swabue district near Swatow, discovered more sites. The latter district gave very interesting and important results, which have recently been outlined in a paper by Father Maglioni in the Hong Kong Naturalist.
In 1932 Professor Shellshear brought the facts then known about Hong Kong's prehistory before the scientific world at the Prehistorians' Congress at Hanoi, whose proceedings were published by the École Française d'Extrême Orient as the Praehistorica Asiae Orientales (Hanoi, 1932). Father Finn summed up the results of his work at the Lamma Island site at the Manila Congress of the same body in 1935.†
* A list of publications on local pre-history that includes those mentioned at various places in this article can be found at the end.
† Whose proceedings were not published. I have Mr. Schofield's notes and can make them available to anyone who may wish to consider filling a gap in our published records.