ENG-2005 — Page 505

History | 439

major outside influences. There is little dispute, on the other hand, that these earliest periods, from 4000 BC, must be seen within the framework of a changing environment in which sea levels rose from depths of 100 metres below the present inexorably submerging vast tracts of coastal plain and establishing a basically modern shoreline and ecology to which human groups had to adapt if they were not to perish.

Archaeological excavations have revealed two main Neolithic cultures lying in stratified sequence. The final phase of Hong Kong's prehistory was marked by the appearance of bronze about the middle of the second millennium BC. Bronze artefacts seem not to have been in common use, but fine specimens of weapons, knives, arrowheads and halberds, and tools such as fish hooks and socketed axes have been excavated from Hong Kong sites. There is evidence, too, in the form of stone moulds from Kwo Lo Wan on the original Chek Lap Kok Island, Tung Wan and Sha Lo Wan on Lantau Island and Tai Wan and Sha Po Tsuen on Lamma Island, that the metal was actually worked locally.

The pottery of the Bronze Age is decorated with designs, many of which are reminiscent of the geometric patterns of the late Neolithic period, but with their own distinctive style, including the 'Kui-dragon' or 'double F' pattern so characteristic of the region during this period.

Early Chinese literary records make references to maritime people known as 'Yue' occupying China's southeastern seaboard. It is probable, therefore, that at least some of Hong Kong's prehistoric inhabitants belonged to the 'Hundred Yue', as this. diverse group of peoples was often called.

The discovery of a prehistoric burial ground at Tung Wan Tsai North on Ma Wan Island in 1997 shed light on the ethnicity of prehistoric inhabitants in Hong Kong. Among the 20 burials discovered, 15 yielded human skeletal remains, seven of which were well preserved. Study of the human bones revealed that these early inhabitants were Asian Mongoloid with characteristics of a tropical racial group.

A Neolithic stone-working site discovered at Ho Chung, Sai Kung, in 1999 was also of significance. Scattered around an activity floor, which covered about 200 square metres, were a number of stone cores, flakes, chipped stone tools such as oyster picks, carving tools and polished implements that included adzes, rings and slotted rings. The artefacts provide valuable data for the study of the stone-working technology of Hong Kong's Neolithic inhabitants.

To save the archaeological heritage from destruction by impending road construction, a joint local and Mainland team carried out a rescue excavation in Sha Ha, also in Sai Kung, between October 2001 and September 2002. This team, comprising experts from the archaeological institutes of Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan and Guangzhou as well as the Antiquities and Monuments Office, was the largest ever mobilised in Hong Kong. Important discoveries included artefacts and archaeological features of the Neolithic Period and the Bronze Age as well as the Tang/Song and Ming/Qing dynasties. These findings not only helped to portray the chronology of the