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ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS ON LAMMA ISLAND
(E) NEAR HONG KONG.*
by
D. J. Finn, s.).
The Editor of The Hong Kong Naturalist generously allows me to describe in a series of illustrated articles certain finds of ancient remains on the island of Lamma, finds which it would seem have a more than local in- terest in the field of Chinese archaeology.
I say
"finds "advisedly, because much of the material has been found in an obvious way—and on that account is not so rich in evidential value as one might wish. A certain amount has been sought for by digging in the hope of stricter control. The digging hardly inerits the name of excavation.
1 was
Of recent years, several people of a questing and questioning temper have been collecting evidence of human activities in or about the island of Hong Kong, evidence consisting for the most part of stone tools or weapons, fragments of pottery, stone rings and the like. Most of this was collected on the surface of the soil or on rocks or in water-courses, in such sites as pointed to a removal from the original place of deposit. It is, I think, public property that Dr. Heanly, Mr. Schofield and Professor Shellshear were especially keen on the pursuit. When Professor Shellshear was going on leave this year, he asked me to interest myself in the observations. indeed very glad of the invitation, and luck seemed to confirm the vocation. A few days after that, while I was still regarding any active participation as remote, I almost crushed a piece of obviously old pottery under foot as I walked past a sand-heap on a jetty at Aberdeen (Hong Kong): I was on my way to town. On my way back past the same spot, I picked up this time a piece of patinated bronze, evidently a fragment of a weapon, probably a sword. Next morning, I came deliberately with a friend and a shovel the friend had the satisfaction of digging up a stone spear-head weathered to a russet brown and we got more fragments of pottery, one of a type which I already knew from Prof. Shellshear's specimens. The connexion between the finds of those twenty-four hours remains still the chief question for solu- tion! The next step was to find where the sand had come from. Having found out that and having got there, I found myself at the site from which I knew that Prof. Shellshear and his friends had already reaped a rich harvest. Since then, Mr. Schofield has told me that when he first found the site, one had to pick one's steps carefully not to tread on old pot-sherds and the rest. To-day the story is different: one has to work hard to unearth something unless the last sand-junk and its coolies have thrown about some
nga p'in as useless rubbish. This position is all to the good in so far as one gets some more definite evidence of contacts, succession and the like, But what the site demands is a thorough, careful and immediate cxcavation in order to dis- cover whatever coherent testimony is still preserved in the unshifted sand. Lacking that, one may here describe the site as it at present exists.
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* See Map facing p. 116 H.K.N. III, No. 2; By immediately above first M in LAMMA, tangent of grid-line and bay.
The Hong Kong Naturalist.
Archaeological Finds on Lamma Island
C
227
On the western side of Lamma, there is a large bay, whence its Chi- nese name, "Tai Wan." Most of the western shore of the island runs almost in a straight line N-S. At the northern end of the stretch, it turns practically due West, the angle between the two directions being filled with a short piece of shore running SE-NW. (Plate 32, figure 1). The finds of which the present article treats were made on the beach and in the sand. banks behind this stretch that faces S.W, and seems to be the real Tai Wan or Tai Wan To . Behind the beach is a fertile angle of soil in which is a village which the people themselves call Tai Wan." Plate 32, figure 3, is a view taken from the hills at the back at a height of about 150 feet just beneath a hill top marked 300 feet in the usual maps. The spreading tree marks the southern extension of the finds and the continuous line of breakers run- ning north from the tree indicates very well the extent as far as known. It may be noted for orientation that the coast on the right hand of the view is running off almost due West. The site is therefore a shore very open to the South West—the winds of the summer monsoon and many typhoons would be felt there. On the day the photograph was taken (October 26th) the typical winter monsoon had come and winds were from the North or North- cast on that day a sand-junk had great difficulty in maintaining a gangway on to the beach because of the breakers. Opposite the site the shore shelves very gradually. The land behind the beach scems ideal for a settlement: fertile land with an astonishing amount of water in the hills-in the early sum- mer of this year when there was a drought in Hong Kong, water was brought across to Aberdeen by sampans from this part of the island and there are rice- fields up in the hill over 100 feet over the valley bottom in which the Tai Wan village lies: the site is sheltered from the raw northern winds of winter and open to the cool southerns of summer: the picture Plate 32, figure 3, shows the paddy-fields and vegetable patches below, while behind the tree on the right a kind of low acropolis hill stands out from the foot of the hills. At present, one coming from Aberdeen is pleasantly surprised by the groves of papaya trees, clumps of pine-apples and the amount of paddy that are cultivated. This should be borne in mind in any attempt to decipher the history of the site. The fertility of the place has however onc immediate advantage for us, namely that it will probably shelter one spot untouched for regular excavation at some future date, namely the patch of dense growth that lies beneath the great tree at the southern end. (Plate 32, figures I and 3).
The character of the actual ground from which the objects of our investigation have been recovered will best be understood from the photo- graphs showing people inspecting the place. (Plate 32, figures 4 and 5). Between the boulder covered lower beach and the sand bank on which the fields begin, there is a stretch of shore about 120 yards long by 120 feet wide (or deep) from which in the course of the past few years the sand-junks have removed a vast quantity of sand: they have not left the ground an even level but a switch-back surface crossed by ridges averaging two or three feet in height which separate the space into a series of transverse compartments. Plate 32, figure 4; these compartments now form the corridors of approach to the sand bank at the back when sand is being actually removed. On this stretch
December 1932.
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