ENG-1959 — Page 382

Chapter 24: History

ANTECEDENTS

THE earliest traces of human settlement in the region are at Shek Pik, on the south coast of Lantau Island, and on the beach known as Hung Shing Yeh, on the west coast of Lamma Island. From the rock carvings, pottery and implements discovered there, it is clear that in prehistoric times the islands were occupied, at least seasonally, by people whose trade connexions stretched from the Yangtse basin as far south as Indonesia. Little is known of the region before it adopted Chinese culture. Chinese histories refer to the early inhabitants as Maan, implying barbarian, and provide few details about them.

Kwangtung was first brought under the suzerainty of China between 221 and 214 B.C., but it was many hundreds of years before there was any degree of Chinese migration into the province.* Remote and dangerous, its islands providing ideal hiding places for sea-robbers and bandits, this particular region was no place for civilized settlement.

Southward Chinese migration on a large scale began to affect Kwangtung during the Sung dynasty (960-1279). Little is known of the early relations between Chinese and Maan which must have resulted from this movement, but it is clear that by this time the Maan had already adopted Chinese culture and names. Chinese settlement in the New Territories is continuous from the beginning of the thirteenth century.

For a few months during 1278 the last emperor of the Southern Sung, Ti Ping, in flight from the invading Mongols, made his capital at Kowloon, and a small hill crowned with prominent boulders was held sacred to his memory, until 1943, when the

* The tomb at Li Cheng Uk, whose discovery is described in the 1955 Annual Report, is the most striking surviving example of early Chinese settlement in the area.