Recent Advances in the Prehistoric Archaeology of Formosa* by Kwang-Chih Chang and Minze Stuiver

RECENT ADVANCES IN THE PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY OF FORMOSA* BY KWANG-CHIH CHANG AND MINZE STUIVER DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND PEABODY MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, AND DEPARTMENTS OF GEOLOGY AND BIOLOGY AND RADIOCARBON LABORATORY, YALE UNIVERSITY Communicated by Irving Rouse, January 26, 1966 The importance of Formosa (Taiwan) as a first steppingstone for the movement of peoples and cultures from mainland Asia into the Pacific islands has long been recognized. The past 70 years have witnessed considerable high-quality study of both the island's archaeology' and its ethnology,2 but it has become increasingly evident that to explore fully Formosa's position in the culture history of the Far East it is imperative also to enlist the disciplines of linguistics, ethnobiology, and the environmental sciences.3 It is with this aim that preliminary and exploratory investigations were carried out in Formosa under the auspices of the Department of Anthropology of Yale University, in collaboration with the Departments of Biology at Yale, and of Archaeology-Anthropology and Geology at National Taiwan Uni- versity (Taipei, Taiwan), during 1964-65. As a result of these investigations, prehistoric cultures can now be formulated on the basis of excavated material, and be placed in a firm chronology, grounded on stratigraphic and carbon-14 evidence. This prehistoric chronology, moreover, can be related to environmental changes during the postglacial period, established by geological and palaeobiological data. Comparison of the new information with prehistoric culture histories in the ad- joining areas in Southeast China, the Ryukyus, and Southeast Asia throws light on problems of cultural origins and contacts in the Western Pacific region, and suggests ways in which to utilize Dyen's recent linguistic work,4 as well as current ethnologi- cal research. The results confirm Formosa's significant role and point to oppor- tunities for studies in the future.5 Our research indicates that at about 2500 B.C., two distinct cultures spread into Formosa from mainland Asia. One, the Yuanshan Culture, centered in the Taipei basin in the northern part of the island in the drainage of the Tamsui River and its upper courses. According to the excavated material from Yuanshan Shellmound6 and Tapenkeng (excavated fall, 1964), the Yuanshan Culture is characterized by a sandy buff ware; a polished stone inventory including the long, flat hoe, stepped adz, shouldered ax, perforated triangular arrowpoint, and ornaments of jadish ma- terials; and an industry of bone and antler. Its principal ceramic form is a pot with lid, two vertical loop handles attached to the collared, rounded body, and a ring foot of medium height. A brownish slip is the only surface treatment in most cases, but short incised strokes, small ring impressions, net incisions, and coarsely brushed dark red paint decorate many vessels. Archaeological assemblages completely identical with the Yuanshan Culture have not been identified anywhere in the Far East, but the basic forms of pottery and the stepped adz resemble elements of the prehistoric Lungshanoid horizon on the southeast coast of China, and the shouldered ax points in the direction of the Gulf of Tonkin.7 Three carbon-14 dates from the Shellmound (Y-1547: 3860 A 80 B.P.; Y-1548: 3540 4 80 B.P.; Y-1549: 3190 1 80 B.P.) and two from Tapenkeng (Y-1551: 2840 At 200 B.P.; Y-1498: 2030 539 Downloaded by guest on September 29, 2021 540 ANTHROPOLOGY: CHANG AND STUIVER PROC. N. A. S. i 80 B.P.) firmly place the Yuanshan Culture at 2'/2 millennia before Christ. During the second half of the Tapenkeng sequence, i.e. after about 500 B.C., there was an intrusion into the Yuanshan Culture of a ceramic ware characterized by impressed check patterns, apparently from the south. At this time the two early prehistoric cultures of Formosa must have come into direct contact in the northern part of the island. The second prehistoric culture, which began in the middle of the third millennium B.C., arrived in southwestern Formosa. Excavations carried out early in 1965 at the site of Fengpitou,8 near Kaohsiung, disclosed a long (3.5 m) deposition of a Neo- lithic culture with a lower stratum devoid of mollusc shells and an upper layer full of them. A series of carbon-14 dates from the upper, shell-midden layer (Y-1.577: 2440 i 100 B.P.; Y-1584: 2670 i 80 B.P.; Y-1648: 2670 i 60 B.P.; Y-1578: 2780 i 80 B.P.; Y-1649: 2900 + 120 B.P.; Y-1581: 2910 i 80 B.P.; Y-1580: 3310 + 80 B.P.) places this layer between 500 and 1500 B.C. and suggests 2500 B.C. as the date for the beginning of the whole series. The material culture at the site contrasts sharply with the Yuanshan Culture and is characterized by a polished stone inventory that includes the flat, trapezoidal hoe, spatula-shaped hoe, rectangular adz, triangular (but not perforated) and stemmed arrowhead, and perforated slate knife (rectangular and semilunar varieties); a rich bone-antler-shell industry; and a m6lange of ceramic wares, red, buff, gray, and black in color, which includes painted, incised, engraved, and impressed (check, basket, and mat) decorative patterns, and bowls, beakers, and pots with lids, lugs (handles), and ting feet and high pedestals with cutouts. These features identify the culture at the site unmistakably with the Lungshanoid horizon of prehistoric southeast China and give rise to its designation as the Taiwan Lungshanoid Culture. The Lungshanoid was the major prehistoric culture along much of the western coastal area of Formosa south of the Yuanshan domain, and its geometric impressed ware apparently prevailed during the first millennium and laid the foundation for much of the later prehistoric culture ancestral to a large segment of the present aboriginal population. Both the Yuanshan and the Lungshanoid cultures were undoubtedly based upon highly developed agriculture. The collecting, of marine and riverine molluscs, hunting of deer and boar, and fishing played important parts in their subsistence, as is shown by the contents of the kitchen middens and the remains of stone and bone points and net sinkers. Nevertheless, the numerous polished and chipped stone artifacts that by any criteria can be described only as cultivation implements (flat, long hoe, spatula-shaped hoe, slate knife, hache p~diforme, and possibly shouldered ax) and wood-working implements (rectangular adz, stepped adz, and chisel), to- gether with the broad cultural make-up (extensive area of settlement, longevity of occupation, and the elaboration and richness of stone, bone, and ceramic artifacts), bespeak cultures characterized by very intensive and advanced agriculture. Tsu- kada9 reports that pollen analysis of a Jih-Yueh Tan core, in central Formosa, dis- closes a sudden increase of chenopodiaceous and large-sized grass pollen at about 4200 B.P., which clearly indicates intensive agricultural activity. In view of Jih- Yueh Tan's location in central Taiwan, this abrupt change in its vegetational history agrees in time with the expansion of the Lungshanoid Culture in Formosa. According to Tsukada, about one third of the grass pollen after 4200 B.P. at Jih- Yueh Tan probably consists of cultivated species, which accords with our knowledge Downloaded by guest on September 29, 2021 VOL. 55, 1966 ANTHROPOLOGY: CHANG AND STUIVER 541 of the Lungshanoid in South China as a rice- and millet-growing culture.'0 This raises the further interesting possibility of rice cultivation in Formosa long before the immigration of the modern Chinese, beginning in the sixteenth century, even though ethnologists observe only millet among the aborigines today.1' Although our investigation has firmly established the fact that intensive grain agriculture in Formosa began around 2500 B.C. with the arrivals of the Yuanshan and the Lungshanoid cultures from mainland Asia, it is as yet unclear what went on in Formosa prior to that time. Kano"2 long argued on the basis of distribution that the earliest prehistoric culture of the island was characterized by corded ware, and at several sites-notably Yuanshan6 and Tapenkeng in the north, Shuiyuanti in central Taiwan,'3 and Fengpitou in the south-the lowest prehistoric occupation is indeed characterized by potsherds of fairly coarse and thick paste with impressed cord marks, occasional red paint, and group-instrument-incised rectilinear and curvilinear decorative patterns. The shape of the vessel is rather limited in range- low-collared, occasionally with a raised exterior ridge below the rim to emphasize the decorative patterns incised upon it; globular body; low ring foot occasionally with cutouts. The stone inventory associated with the cord-marked pottery is very inadequately known, but it includes pecked river pebbles, perforated triangular points of slate, a few chipped ax-hoes, and polished rectangular adzes, some of which exhibit steps of a rudimentary form. Outstanding problems concerning this cultural horizon in Formosa are its origin, its dating, and its subsistence base. Of its origin little can be said except that corded ware in vast variety was wide- spread in East Asia and that the ring foot and rectangular adz are two Lungshanoid elements. Obviously, comparative studies of this horizon cannot be undertaken with confidence without positive knowledge of its age. From stratigraphical evidence it is certain that the earliest manifestation of the Corded Ware stratum in Formosa predates both Yuanshan and Lungshanoid, i.e., it is earlier than 2500 B.C. But how much earlier? The excavations at Tapenkeng disclose the fact that, from stratigraphic and soil data, there is a marked chrono- logical discontinuity between the Corded Ware stratum and the Yuanshan occupation'4: (1) A layer of andesite slabs separates the two loamy occupation layers, probably indicating a talus structure.

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