[ { "id": 204482, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 114, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "103\n\nEXCAVATIONS AT MAN KOK TSUI ON LANTAU ISLAND\n\nELSPETH MANEELY *\n\n[On 13 May 1961 over fifty members of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society landed from a launch at Man Kok Tsui, a promontory on Lantau facing Hong Kong. Here Professor S. G. Davis and Dr. S. M. Bard explained to the members of the Society how the excavations were carried out and what objects had been discovered. Later the party walked over the hills to Silvermine Bay. This article gives an account of the excavations carried out there in 1958, Ed.]\n\nTo date, the investigation of Neolithic remains in China points to the existence of three main Neolithic cultures.' This broad classification depends largely on differences in the types of fine pottery. In the north-west traces of the Painted Pottery Culture were first noted by J. G. Andersson at Yang Shao, Honan in 1920, and three years later at the Tao river sites, Kansu. In the north-east, traces of the Black Pottery Culture were uncovered in 1928 at Lung Shan, Shantung. The finds at Man Kok Tsui belong to the third of these Neolithic traditions: the South-East Neolithic, and the characteristic fine pottery found is a hard stoneware bearing a variety of impressed designs. This type of impressed pottery was first discovered in Hong Kong by Dr. C. M. Heanley in 1926 and it was associated with several kinds of stone artifact. It is interesting to note that the traces of these three Neolithic cultures were uncovered within a period of eight years and that in 1926—the year in which Dr. Heanley began his work on pre-historic remains in Hong Kong—the exciting discovery of \"Peking Man\" took place at Chou Kou Tien, south-west of Peking.\n\nDr. Heanley was joined in his systematic survey of the Hong Kong area by Professor J. L. Shellshear and Mr. W. Schofield and they soon established that the Colony was rich in scattered finds, in general concentrated near the beaches and on the low\n\n* Mrs. Maneely has lived in Hong Kong since 1956, and is the Hon. Secretary of the Hong Kong University Archaeological team.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204908, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1965", "page_number": 16, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY\n\n11\n\nfound. The explanation for this is that this part of South China has been rising relative to sea level. This positive rise is connected with isostasy and eustatic movements of the oceans that cause cycles of submergence and emergence. Assuming a rise of one foot every hundred years then, Hong Kong in the last 2,500 years has risen 25 feet,\n\nDr. Heanley and his friend Mr. Walter Schofield, a government administrator, gathered a large and varied collection of celts from Kowloon, Cheung Chau and Lantau Island. Examination of this collection by experts soon established that they were not just freaks of nature but definite human artifacts. Since Heanley's first notification, other workers have found them in practically every part of the Colony, and contrary to his belief that they were principally found on granite hills, they have been found often in abundance on every other rock outcrop represented in the area — especially volcanic rock. It may be that because of the extreme susceptibility of granite to erosion, which causes 'badland country' with thin or no vegetation cover, the celts can be seen more easily,\n\nIncluding the places mentioned by Dr. Heanley, celts can still be found in the fields, on raised beaches or on low hills at Tai Wan, Hung Shing Ye, Yung Shu Wan, Aberdeen, Tai Po, Castle Peak, San Hui, So Kun Wat, Tsun Wan, Shatin, Shataukok, Man Kok Tsui, Ha Tsuen, Sheung Shui, Shek Pik, Sai Kung, Lai Chi Chung, Sok Ku Wan, Fanling and Kau Sai Chau.\n\nMuch is owed to Dr. Heanley, Mr. Schofield and Professor J. L. Shellshear, who was head of the Anatomy Department in the University of Hong Kong, for their conscientious and patient work in combing the Colony for other archaeological remains and sites after the celts had been identified. I have been told by our Vice-President, Sir Lindsay Ride, who knew all three intimately and often accompanied them on their field trips, that they were superbly energetic and covered tremendous distances in a day at great speed. Only fit and enthusiastic walkers could hope to last a whole day with them. They located several prehistoric sites, the most notable being So Kun Wat, Shek Pik and those at the northwest end of Lamma Island.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204909, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1965", "page_number": 17, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "12\n\nS. G. DAVIS\n\nThe sites at Tai Wan, Hung Shing Ye and Yung Shu Wan on Lamma Island have been most fruitful and have provided the material that was excavated and studied by Father D. J. Finn, which is partly on display today. The report of finds at Tai Wan came in a most interesting way. Mr. Tom Man Long (who happily is present with us tonight) was building the service reservoir in the Botanical Gardens opposite Government House when he noticed that the sand being used for the concrete had fragments of pottery and several axe-heads. Mr. Tom, as a keen collector of Chinese art and pottery, recognized the antiquity of the pottery and reported his discovery to the Waterworks Department who in turn notified Professor Shellshear. He visited Tai Wan and immediately recognized the richness of the site. At a later date Father Finn was asked by Professor Shellshear, who was going on leave, to interest himself in the finds. Father Finn wrote, \"I was 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. The next step was to find where the sand came from. Having found out that and having got there, I found myself at the site from which I knew Professor Shellshear and his friends had already reaped a rich harvest.”\n\nIt was a fortunate day for archaeology when Father Finn began his work on Lamma. He brought an expert knowledge to the study and rapidly revealed tremendous archaeological treasures by thorough, careful digging. The results of this work were meticulously reported in The Hong Kong Naturalist from 1933 to 1936 and still later combined in one complete volume under the editorship of my friend, Father F. Ryan, S.J.\n\nMany of the best finds from the Lamma sites are in the British Museum. They were sent there by Professor Shellshear and were examined by Mr. Soame Jenyns, the curator for the Far East section. Mr. Jenyns had been in Hong Kong as a young administrator and had studied Chinese art. Outstanding among the specimens is a bronze sword about eleven inches long and distinguished by a zoomorph design in three panels along the blade. This sword has been dated as Warring Kingdoms Period, (421-221 B.C.). A bronze-socketed celt with a distinctive design", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205778, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "78\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\nbears glaze, mostly gray, yellow, brown or blue, and was made on the potter's wheel. The levels of seven pieces are recorded: the rest were picked up loose.\n\nMost of the pieces found, both loose and in situ, can be fairly safely ascribed to the Sung dynasty. Two of those from known levels are more doubtful; one jar fragment, with a band of four shallow grooves, horizontal, round the exterior, which is covered by worn black glaze, may be older, and was found at 122 cm., the other, found in two pieces at 97 and 107 cm., has been ascribed to the Yuan dynasty. It is part of the lip and body of a brown-glazed vessel with rounded lip and one loop just below the junction of the lip and body, rising vertically in the centre, intended to hold a cord for keeping in place a stopper dish covering the mouth. Three shallow grooves decorate the neck, and three go round the body below the undecorated zone in which the loop is attached. The whole piece is glazed brown outside, and this extends to half way down the inside of the neck.\n\nAll but these two fragments were found at an average depth of 60 cm. in the bank. One of them was believed to be of Ming date by Professor Shellshear, who found and kept it; and the small fragment of a bowl lip from 41 cm. may well be from the large piece of a Sung tea bowl with wave ornament under the glaze inside, found loose on the beach, although they cannot be precisely fitted together. The depths of all these pieces cannot be fully relied on as indicating the time of their original deposition in the bank, as the upper levels down to about one metre have often been disturbed by later burials of bodies by boat people. Of the other pieces found loose, one had a flat unglazed foot, a kiln mark inside, at the bottom, and dark brown glaze and was undecorated: it was a small shallow dish about 10 cm. across the rim, and might well be of Tang date. Another bore typical Sung type underglaze flower ornament, made partly with a 16-tooth comb; it may have been a large tea-bowl, and its glaze was of the celadon shade. One large yellow-glazed rice bowl, its foot and foot-rim fully glazed, was undecorated and could be almost any date between Sung and early Ming.\n\nFinally there are three pieces which may well be considered modern. Two were picked up loose; one a complete small duck-egg blue wine or spirits bowl; another the bottom of a rice bowl", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205780, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "80\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\nAntiquities in 1939, bulletin no. 11. On the Danh Do La site, a sand-bank, he describes a section 4.5 m. above sea level, where at 45 to 89 cm. below the ground surface is a culture stratum with potsherds, stones and pumice. His derivation of the pumice from the East Indies, while possible, is perhaps less likely than my suggestion of a more northern origin, as the prevailing winds in the South China seas are undoubtedly north-east to south-east, and typhoons generally make their approach felt by violent easterly gales. All but three of the pumice-bearing sandbanks in Hong Kong face east, and one of the three, Tai Wan in Lamma, faces south.\n\nLIFE AND INDUSTRY OF THE INHABITANTS\n\nThe only industry of which we can be certain is that still carried on by boat-people living near Tung Kwu, namely, fishing: yet there is little direct evidence of it in the finds. A rough stone ring collected by Professor Shellshear, and a stone axe blunted almost beyond recognition, with a notch on each side for attaching a rope or rattan, most likely used as a net sinker, and found loose on the surface of the isthmus during a visit by Professor Andersson, are the only direct traces. Yet if people ever lived on the island, this was almost the only resource open to them apart from the primitive 'slash and burn' cultivation indicated by the digging-stones. The food vessels left for the dead, the store jars, and the cooking stands they placed their hot round-bottomed caldrons on, indicate not only a settlement, probably shifting, but a cemetery. Tiled houses were no doubt a later development, going back no further than the Tang dynasty. The main interest of the relics found lies in the light they throw on the culture and life of the men who lived there before the coming of the colonists from the feudal principality of Yuet, and so before Chinese influence was strongly felt.*\n\n* James Watt writes:\n\nL\n\nSince Mr. Schofield worked on this site, later excavations in China have confirmed that the whole class of stamped designs found on the soft pottery of Tung Kwu (Plates 7 & 8) is unmistakably derived from the decorative art of the Shang culture in the north. Similar, and some identical, designs are found on Shang pottery of all periods (including those from the recently discovered early Shang site at Erh-li-t'ou in north-western Honan). The pattern of raised studs set in the meshes of a rhombic lattice or a \"compound lozenge\" is also one of the chief decorations appearing on bronzes of the Anyang phase of Shang culture. Further evidence of Shang", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205781, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "TUNG KWU ISLAND\n\n81\n\ninfluence is provided by the recent discovery (in 1968) of a Shang-style stone ko (dagger-axe) on Sha Chau in association with the same soft pottery. The affinity between the decoration on the pottery of Sha Chau and Tung Kwu and Shang pottery is therefore rather stronger than Mr. Schofield's last sentence in the present article suggests. Perhaps his statement made thirty years ago in his classic report on the Shek Pik site remains true: \"From the earliest period to which the Hong Kong culture can be dated a trace of Chinese influence is present.\"\n\n++\n\nPre-war writings on Hong Kong Archaeology include:\n\n(1) J. G. Andersson — “Topography of the Hongkong Sites\" in Bulletin No. 11, Topographical and Archaeological Studies in the Far East, of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, 1939.\n\n(2) S. F. Balfour Section II, \"Archaeological Evidence\" at pp. 336-341 of his article \"Hong Kong Before The British” between pp. 330-352 and 440-464 of T'ien Hsia Monthly, Shanghai, 1941.\n\n(3) Fr. D. J. Finn — various articles in The Hong Kong Naturalist between 1933-36. These are now reprinted in (ed. T. F. Ryan, S.J.) Archaeological Finds On Lamma Island (Akhio) Near Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Ricci publications, Ricci Hall, University of Hong Kong, 1958.\n\n(4) C. M. Heanley and J. L. Shellshear \"A Contribution To The Prehistory Of Hongkong And The New Territories”, Praehistoria Asia Orientalis, I, Premier Congrès des Pré-historiens d'Extrême-Orient, Hanoi, 1932.\n\n(5) W. Schofield — \"Implements Of Palaeolithic Type In Hong Kong\" at pp. 272-275, The Hong Kong Naturalist, December, 1935.\n\n(6) 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.\n\nA photograph of Mr. Schofield taken at Tung Kwu by Professor Shellshear on 9 December, 1931 is at Plate 9. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206612, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 160, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "ARCHAEOLOGY IN H.K. AND SOUTH CHINA\n\n163\n\nquartz 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.*\n\nThis 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.\n\nFather 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.\n\nIn 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.†\n\n* A list of publications on local pre-history that includes those mentioned at various places in this article can be found at the end.\n\n† 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.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 } ]