Hong Kong (including Lamma and Lantau Islands) provides archaeologists with an interesting microcosm of cultural evolution on China's southern coast from the Neolithic to the twentieth century. For most of its past, it was inhabited by non-Han Chinese people related to the inhabitants of modern Thailand and Vietnam, often termed ‘Yue’ in Chinese sources. The archaeology of Hong Kong illustrates long-term adaptation to a coastal environment by a mobile population with access to networks of maritime and overland exchange since the Neolithic period. Hong Kong also provides a useful example of the Sinicisation process of southern China that began in the Han Dynasty.
Hong Kong, Lamma and Lantau were places of no great historical significance near the entrance to the Pearl River Delta and estuary. Major sites were located in and near modern Guangzhou, at the upstream end of the delta. In pre-Han times, Panyu, on the southern edge of Guangzhou, was the centre of a non-Chinese kingdom.
Chinese troops under Qin Shihuang, the ‘first emperor’, had to fight for years to subdue this area. After the fall of the Qin in 206 BC, a local kingdom called Nanyue (‘southern Yue’) was founded at Panyu on the southern fringe of Guangzhou by people who probably spoke a tongue related to Vietnamese and dialects of south-western China. Nanyue was reconquered by the Han, but it took another thousand years before Han culture became the dominant lifestyle in the Hong Kong area. A few Chinese officials maintained a separate existence from the local Hong Kong natives. The latter subsisted on marine resources, and did not plant rice. The site of Sha Po, for example, may have only been occupied seasonally as part of a semi-nomadic lifestyle similar to that pursued by boat-dwelling sea nomad groups in Southeast Asia.
Despite Hong Kong's marginal historical status, the archaeology of the three islands is of importance for two reasons: it has been studied since the 1930s and investigations have revealed copious data on a more or less continuous archaeological record covering the last 6000 years. Hong Kong is the best-documented example of the cultural transformations that have taken place in southern China during this period. Hong Kong also provides a good case study for comparison with other overseas Chinese settlements in Southeast Asia, America and Australia.
The book focuses on the site of Sha Po, part of Yung Shue Wan, on Lamma Island. Sha Po is not the richest or most significant site in Hong Kong territory, but activity there spanned most of the past six millennia. Chapter 2, ‘Site biography’, describes how approaches to the site of Sha Po have evolved over the past eight decades, from antiquarian collecting to formal research and officially licensed excavation. The latter, conducted intermittently since the 1930s, indicate that occupation on the beach ridge (150m long, 50m wide and a maximum of 5m high) began around 6500 BP. Activity on a plateau overlooking the beach began in the Bronze Age.
This book frames the site as a multi-period “social landscape” (p. 30). This term denotes the authors’ attempt to interpret the site as understood in the past by its inhabitants. Although this approach is alluded to several times, and used as a device to structure the selection of data for presentation and interpretation, most readers will find the book primarily useful for its skilful summary of data of varying quality and for the insights provided into the cultural evolution of sites of this type.
Adaptation to the local environment forms a major concern of this study; exchange receives less attention. The people of Sha Po had access to two types of stone for tool-making (one assumes the stone was local, but it would be useful to have this confirmed). Jade used for burial offerings in the Late Neolithic was imported from the Nanling Mountains, which form the watershed between the Pearl and Yangtze Rivers. High-fired stoneware jars found at Sha Po were probably imported from inland Guangdong. Pottery from various periods is well described, including glazed ware from other parts of China, but the subject of where the earthenware pottery was made is not addressed. There does not seem to be evidence of local pottery-making; cooking pots may also have been made elsewhere.
The Bronze Age (Chapter 5) is “one of Sha Po's most fascinating periods”. Bronze axes were cast here, probably using recycled bronze rather than imported raw materials. On the nearby plateau, quartz rings were being fashioned during the same general period. All the supplies for these processing industries had to have been imported.
From the Six Dynasties through to the Tang period (sixth to tenth centuries AD), a kiln industry operated at Sha Po (Chapter 6), probably producing salt, possibly under official supervision, although the precise nature of the process remains unclear. During the Song and Yuan periods, Sha Po people had access to high-quality ceramics from other parts of China, of types that were also exported to Southeast Asia. Some are also found in a late Tang cemetery recently discovered on Lanzhou Island, which the authors interpret as a possible Chinese outpost connected with maritime trade, which expanded greatly during this period. No settlements of the Tang period have yet been found at Sha Po, suggesting that the culture was still more Yue than Han. Han Chinese began to reside in the area during the Southern Song (AD 1127–1279), marked by a shift to wet-rice growing and consumption, signifying an important stage in the transition to a Han Chinese lifestyle.
The Ming dynasty (AD 1368–1643) is an almost complete blank at Sha Po. This is unfortunate, as Europeans began to visit Guangzhou during this period. A major transition occurred in AD 1662 when the Qing implemented a coastal evacuation that involved the forced abandonment of Hong Kong (which then had about 16000 inhabitants; p. 156, footnote 1) and other coastal settlements. Hong Kong was later repopulated by people of whom the majority had no previous connection to the territory.
The late Qing (AD 1644–1911) has not surprisingly left dense archaeological deposits at Sha Po. More surprising to the authors, however, “was how difficult it was to find published material against which we could compare our Sha Po discoveries [. . .] no substantial site or assemblage of Qing domestic objects has ever been published in Hong Kong or nearby areas of mainland China” (p. 155). They continue: “The question of identifying the sources of so-called village wares, which occur in huge numbers on most Qing sites and are routinely considered difficult to date closely, is one that needs addressing in Hong Kong and south China archaeology” (p. 157, footnote 42). The book therefore falls back on the archaeology of the Chinese diaspora to North America and Australia for comparative artefacts. Here, however, it is interesting to compare the Hong Kong/Sha Po data from the Yuan through to Qing with that obtained from recent excavations in Singapore. Two books by Jennifer Barry (Reference Barry2000, Reference Barry2009), as well as this reviewer's Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea (Reference Miksic2013), contain similar artefacts and partly help to rectify the situation noted by the authors of the Sha Po study.
In summary, this book skilfully condenses 6500 years of archaeology into a few pages. The data from Sha Po contribute to the emerging study of southern China during this period, and are also relevant to those studying related topics across Southeast Asia more broadly.
