ARCHAEOLOGY IN H.K. AND SOUTH CHINA
167
of it with designs in red and green overglaze enamel, and some with underglaze blue, was discovered.
A short description of the leading types of objects discovered in Hong Kong will be of interest. They may be classed according to their probable uses as follows:
1. Tools: a. agricultural
b. woodworking
c. general use.
2. Weapons: a. for hunting or fishing
b. for war
c. for ceremonial and burial purposes.
3. Ornaments: a. for dress
b. for ceremonial, especially burial purposes.
4. Domestic utensils, including pottery.
5. Miscellaneous objects, including playthings and possibly currency.
1. a. A number of roughly-flaked tools have been discovered, many of them at frequented sites. These have various forms: some are large, heavy triangular-pointed things that might almost be called 'rostrocarinates'; others are 'short axes' with a hand-hold on the blunt edge; but a large proportion are triangular, weigh a pound or two, and have one edge flaked sharp, and one of the points adjacent to it bruised. Whether these are the teeth of primitive harrows, hand drills for planting mountain rice, or picks for knocking oysters off rocks, is uncertain, but I class them as agricultural tools. A more probable one is a sharp-edged polished stone blade which can be held hidden in the hand; it is almost certainly a reaping-knife.
1. b. The adze was the chief woodworking tool. It varies almost infinitely: the shouldered, the stepped, the rectangular (with squared sides), the cosmopolitan (with rounded sides), the cylindrical (with pointed butt), the lentoid, the trapezoid, and the boot-shaped forms have all been found, with sub-varieties. All these are in stone, flaked roughly into shape and then partly or wholly polished, but in almost every case a chip or two of the original flaking remains. Undoubtedly, the chief use of these tools was to shape the planking of boats, for their dwelling-sites give clear proof that