ENG-2015 — Page 406

Chapter 21

History

Hong Kong's eventful history is one of almost constant change and development, creating one of the world's leading trading and financial centres and bringing material and social improvements for the community.

Archaeological Background

Archaeological studies in Hong Kong began in the 1920s and have uncovered evidence of ancient human activities at many sites along the winding shoreline, testifying to events spanning more than 6,000 years. Archaeologically, Hong Kong is probably a tiny part of the far greater cultural sphere of South China, itself as yet imperfectly known.

Despite suggestions that local prehistoric cultures developed out of incursions from North China or Southeast Asia, a growing number of scholars believe the prehistoric cultures within the South China region evolved locally, independent of any major outside influences. There is little dispute, on the other hand, that the earliest cultures emerged from 4,000 BC and 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 forming basically the modern shoreline and ecology to which human groups had to adapt, or 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 emergence of bronze around the middle of the second millennium BC. Bronze artefacts seem not to have been in common use, but fine specimens of weapons such as spearheads, arrowheads and halberds, and tools such as knives, fishing hooks and axes have been excavated from Hong Kong sites. There is evidence, too, in the form of stone moulds for casting bronze artefacts from Kwo Lo Wan on the original Chek Lap Kok Island, Tung Wan and Sha Lo Wan on Lantau Island, So Kwun Wat in Tuen Mun, and Tai Wan and Sha Po Tsuen on Lamma Island, that bronze was actually made locally.

The Bronze Age pots have designs that often resemble the geometric patterns of the late Neolithic period, but with their own distinctive style, including the Kui (a dragon-like creature in

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