Taiwan Archaeology

This study aims to clarify the characteristics of early coastal peoples in Southeast China and their relationship to the emergence of a Neolithic transition in this region. In prior decades, the region’s pottery-bearing Neolithic sites were thought to reflect rice farming societies (which were identified as an “Early Neolithic Culture”) linked to ancient Austronesian language groups. However, these beliefs may need to be revised now that archaeological findings have revealed an ongoing reliance on coastal and maritime resources, rather than rice agriculture, in this region since about 5000 BC, or even much earlier. More specifically, the evidence suggests that mixed-origin complex foragers successfully occupied the coastal zones of Fujian (福建), Guangdong (广东), Guangxi (广西), Hainan (海南), and perhaps Taiwan (台湾) around 5000 to 3000 BC. Only later did these groups experience variable degrees of cultural transformation and move towards rice agriculture as a result of their contact with migrating farmers from the middle and lower Yangtze Valley.

Archaeological research has revealed a long history of glass bead exchange and use in Taiwan, yet it has seldom been discussed in the literature. This paper provides an introduction to this exchange from the Iron Age (ca. late 1st millennium BC - mid-2nd millennium AD) to the early modern period (ca. AD 1600-1900) by revisiting the archaeological and historical records. It is suggested that changes in bead styles and chemical compositions over time reveal the transition of bead supply in Taiwan, which further reflects two broad phases of bead trade: Phase I) the earlier involvement of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific bead exchange (1st millennium AD) and Phase II) the later cultural and economic contacts between the indigenous people, Chinese merchants, and Europeans (2nd millennium AD).

台湾原住民的来源、迁徙和扩散，在台湾的历史研究上一直是个重要的问题。然而，受到研究方法和资料的局限，这个问题到现在仍有许多争议。本文试图在前人研究的基础上，通过对台湾从旧石器时代到铁器时代发现的聚落选址进行统计，主要统计其所处的地域和地貌，描述台湾原住民的迁徙和扩散，进而解释台湾原住民文化的发展。本文通过几个时代的聚落分布的不同来解释台湾原住民文化的发展: ( 1) 旧石器时代，台湾原住民集中分布在台东的海滨;
( 2) 新石器早期，台湾原住民主要分布在台湾北部的丘陵; ( 3) 新石器中期，台湾原住民开始呈规模地在西部平原聚落定居; ( 4) 新石器晚期，台湾原住民集中分布在台湾东西两岸的低地聚落; ( 5) 铁器时代，台湾原住民开始成规模的向高山迁徙。
The research on the origin and move of Taiwanese aborigines is the essential part of Taiwan historical research. However, many questions remain controversial due to the limitation of archaeological method and documents. This essay，based on the previous research，describes the movement and expansion of Taiwanese aborigines through the statistics of the settlement distribution from paleolithic period to the historic period. ( 1) in the paleolithic age，Taiwanese aborigines were mainly at the seashore of eastern Taiwan; ( 2) in the early neolithic age，Taiwanese aborigines mainly settled at the hills of northern Taiwan; ( 3) in the middle neolithic age，Taiwanese aborigines started to settle in the western plain in a large scale; ( 4) in the late neolithic age，Taiwanese aborigines mainly settled in the lowland of the eastern and western part of Taiwan; ( 5) in the iron age，Taiwanese aborigines initially settled in the mountains of high altitude in a large scale.

Recent multidisciplinary research on the Palaeolithic to Neolithic transition has confirmed several stages of cultural development dated between 20,000 BC and 1500 BC in southern China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. The patterns of habitation, settlement, subsistence, and material culture underwent remarkable changes at certain points during this long time sequence, and even whole populations were replaced or massively transformed. This updated synthesis of new research findings will focus the discussion on the archaeological evidence from Taiwan and its neighboring regions, especially from northern Luzon in the Philippines, and the Marianas of western Micronesia.

Regarding the jade and jade-like artefacts unearthed from Khao Sam Kaeo, new research has explored the use of different raw materials and relations with inter-regional trade networks. Geochemical analysis offers a way to identify the geological sources of the stone materials, potentially involving long-distance movements. In conjunction with those findings, studies of workshop debris provide information about how the artefacts were produced and how the evident crafting styles may have been linked across the regions of Mainland and Island Southeast Asia.

Local craft production is evident in workshop debris at the site. The unearthed artefacts include complete objects and related worked fragments such as drilled-out cores, cut square blanks, and small cut fragments. Most of these materials were used for manufacturing ornaments such as the lingling-o penannular earrings, the double animal-headed ear pendants, bracelets, and pendants. In order to learn the geological sources of the green stones used to make these ornaments at Khao Sam Kaeo, 28 artefacts were examined through a series of non-invasive analyses by a low-vacuum scanning electron microscope (LVSEM) equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray (EDS) spectrometer. The results show those objects and worked fragments can be grouped into three major categories of nephrite jade (17 samples), green mica (8 samples), and quartzite (2 samples). The geological sources included nephrite from Taiwan, mica from the Philippines, and quartzite from an unknown source. Among 17 specimens of nephrite, 12 of them are comparable to the Fengtian nephrite source in Eastern Taiwan. However, another 5 nephrite specimens were too weathered to analyze for making a final conclusion of their geological source. In addition to the nephrite from Taiwan, some of the artefacts were made of mica similar in chemistry to that from Mindoro Island in the Philippines. Khao Sam Keo became the first prehistoric jewellery workshop in Southeast Asia with a significant amount of mica-ornament production. Moreover, quartzite was used to produce a bracelet here.

This study indicates that the stone jewellery production at Khao Sam Kaeo can be situated in a larger regional network or perhaps a number of such networks. Multiple overseas sources are evident in the raw materials. Additionally, the similar production method and ornament style of jade and mica link these findings to the contemporaneous traditions as documented at production sites distributed all around the South China Sea, such as in Southern Taiwan, the Philippines, and Southern Vietnam.

Based on the new findings, two hypotheses are developed about the origins of the responsible craftsmen and production techniques. The first hypothesis proposes different backgrounds in origin or training for the craftsmen of jade versus the craftsmen of mica objects. Each group owned the raw materials or could access the raw material. For nephrite, perhaps a group of specialised craftsmen from Eastern Taiwan, Southern Vietnam, or the Philippines migrated into Khao Sam  Kaeo. The second hypothesis proposes that local craftsmen at Khao Sam Kaeo knew the necessary  skills for nephrite and mica production from other regions, but several points remain uncertain,  such as how the skills were learned and how people obtained the raw materials from overseas. According to the archaeological findings at Khao Sam Kaeo, the site was strongly connected in extensive maritime trade networks, linking with Taiwan, the Philippines, Borneo, coastal Southern Vietnam, Cambodia, and beyond at approximately 400 through 100 BC. Future  studies will be needed to understand how those overseas raw materials, techniques, and perhaps craftsmen reached to Khao Sam Kaeo.

Malcom Ross’s new theory of early Austronesian phylogeny is examined. Idescribe evidence that *-en served to mark verbs in undergoer voice, patientsubject, in a language ancestral to Puyuma, as well as evidence that *<in>occurs in some verbs in undergoer voice, patient subject perfective, in one socio-lect of Nanwang Puyuma. This evidence falsifies the claim that Puyuma reflects an early Austronesian stage at which *-en and *<in> had not yet been reinter- preted from nominalizers into voice markers. It also falsi
fies the phylogeny thattakes that putative innovation as its central event. A hypothetical scenario isoffered to account for the replacement of the *-en, *-an, and *Si- (or *Sa-) seriesof voice markers by the series now found in Puyuma independent verbs.

Taiwan presents a puzzling anomaly in the development and expansion of South and Southeast Asian trade routes. The lack of historical records from the island emphasises the value of archaeology for understanding the establishment of trade and the transmission of people, ideas and knowledge. Recent research focusing on newly excavated sites such as Jiuxianglan shows that the Metal Age in Taiwan began around 400 BC, much earlier than was previously thought. Furthermore, it seems that early trade predominantly prioritised links to the south, and not,
curiously, with Mainland China to the immediate west as had traditionally been supposed.

Contemporary impressions of Taiwan’s relations with Southeast Asia tend to focus on flows of labor, capital, tourism, and marriage. Countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand carry the impression that they are the origins of cheap, sometimes easily exploitable, migrant labor for employers in Taiwan. Many people in Taiwan also see the former two countries as sources of brides for lower-income men. These same countries, along with Cambodia and, to a lesser degree, Malaysia, are locations where Taiwanese capital is invested in factories for low-cost labor, proximity to Taiwan and China, and the relative absence of political contentiousness for being Taiwanese. With the advent of cheap air travel, Taiwan and Southeast Asia also offer the middle class in these areas options for quick holiday getaways. These interactions and the condescension toward Southeast Asia that sometimes accompany them belie the rich history of interactions that Taiwan and Southeast Asia share.

http://www.nbr.org/research/activity.aspx?id=831

With more published chemical analyses of glass beads in Southeast Asia and southern China in the last decade, it is becoming possible to discuss the regional and temporal patterns of prehistoric glass in these areas. This article focuses on the late 1 st millennium BC to the 1 st millennium AD, reviewing the chemical compositions of glass in Taiwan, Southeast Asia and southern China, in an attempt to understand the potential relationships between the three regions.

摘要：本文是基於考古發掘獲取的人骨遺存在內的89組古代及現代的人群樣本而做的顱骨形態測量研究，側重說明解剖學意義上的現代人（anatomically modern humans）在歐亞大陸東部演化分佈的“二層”模式。距今6.5萬－5萬年以前，“第一層”現代人經東南亞大陸向東、向南擴散，他們與現今安達曼人、澳大利亞人、巴布亞人的祖先以及日本繩紋時代人群最為接近。距今約九千年前，擁有東北亞血統的“第二層”現代人出現在中國中部地區，並於距今四千年前後向南擴張至東南亞地區，這些人群在顱骨形態上與西伯利亞人具有密切的親緣關係。上述兩大人群最初交流有限，在農業能夠支撐增加人口密度的情境下，“第二層”現代人增長速度較快，人口數量較多。這兩層人群顯著的二重結構特徵，表明了現代人在歐亞大陸南、北不同遷移路線間的歷時性差異。

In this paper we focus on the column-shaped tombstone as an obvious relict of Taiwan's colonial history under the Japanese. The column seems to have been introduced in Taiwan and Penghu by the Japanese themselves, for their own people or for Taiwanese who had died while serving the Japanese empire. This tombstone form is thus mostly found in the years of WWII, but even before the column developed in some regions into a local tradition, e.g. in Penghu, or into a family tradition, e.g. in Tainan. This tradition was traded even after KMT arrived and chased the traces of Japanese culture.

This study reports a cranio-morphometric analysis of female human remains from seven archaeological sites in China, Vietnam and Taiwan that date between 16,000 and 5300 BP. The aim of the analysis is to test the "two-layer" model of human dispersal in eastern Eurasia, using previously unanalysed female remains to balance the large sample of previously-analysed males. The resulting craniometric data indicate that the examined specimens all belong to the "first layer" of dispersal, and share a common ancestor with recent Australian and Papuan populations, and the ancient Jomon people of Japan. The analysed specimens pre-date the expansion of agricultural populations of East/ Northeast Asian origin-that is, the "second layer" of human dispersal proposed by the model. As a result of this study, the two-layer model, which has hitherto rested on evidence only from male skeletons, is now strongly supported by female-derived data. Further comparisons reveal that the people of the first layer were closer in terms of their facial morphology to modern Africans and Sri Lankan Veddah than to modern Asians and Europeans, suggesting that the Late Pleistocene through Middle Holocene hunter-gatherers examined in this study were direct descendants of the anatomically modern humans who first migrated out of Africa through southern Eurasia.

考古證據顯示，在過去數千年的時間裡、臺灣東部和菲律賓之間有不同型式的互動關係，以及在複雜而流動的社會脈絡、環境脈絡下進行的貿易和交換。這些實例對於理解當代的社會、政治、和經濟關係，以及世界史中的跨文化互動都具有啟發性。本文對於臺灣東部和菲律賓的討論，按照時間順序陳述考古證據，包括舊石器時代（30,000 至6000 年前）、新石器時代（6000/5500 至2400 年前）、和鐵器時代（2400 到400 年前）。雖然，這兩個區域間的關係、百年來已經吸引起不少學術關注，近來在臺灣東部和菲律賓的大量考古新證據終於促使許多新的見解得以成型，這是通過對跨區域的器物型態和風格比較、古代裝飾品和其他器物的地質化學成份溯源分析、古代人骨遺骸的顱骨形態分析、古代DNA 研究、古代植物遺留分析、以及古地景研究所獲得的成果。這些最新成果，可以用來重新思考在時間長軸中關於人口遷移、跨文化互動、貿易、交換、和技術傳播等問題。

The Society for East Asian Archaeology (SEAA) is pleased to announce that the Seventh SEAA Worldwide Conference will be held in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, USA, on June 8- 12, 2016.  The conference offers an opportunity for researchers to present the results of their work on any of a broad range of topics relating to East Asian Archaeology.

Glass beads and beadmaking waste have been excavated at the Iron Age site of Jiuxianglan (ca. third century BC–eighth century AD) in southeastern Taiwan. It was suggested that this site may be a production and exchange centre of glass beads in Iron Age Taiwan. This paper presents the analysis of 44 samples, to explore the relationship between glass beads and waste and the nature of bead production at Jiuxianglan. The analysis combines data on style, chemical composition, microstructure and distribution of glass beads and waste. The results do not show a compositional or structural match between the glass beads and glass waste, suggesting that the glass beads may not have been produced at this site.

The Fuyuan site is an important Neolithic site in Eastern Taiwan, with at least two prehistorical cultural layer, including Neolithic plain pottery culture and iron age culture. Because of the inaccessibility, the site was neither severely exploited nor destroyed. During the excavations of the Department of Anthropology, NTU in 2014 and 2015, abundant artifacts of potsherds, stone tools and jade tools were discovered. Around the stone walls we also discovered some regular slate structures. According to the result of surface research, more than one hundred menhirs were recorded. Several menhirs with diverse forms were also discovered during the excavation. Despite that most research in the past focused on the distribution of menhirs in the coastal range, the abundant menhirs of Fuyuan site can enrich the accumulating information of menhirs in the East Rift Valley. Based on the result of excavation on Fuyuan site during 2014 to 2015, and with the earlier ethnographies, this thesis tries to explain the meanings of the slat structures and stone structures. Furthermore, I discuss the definition of "Megalithic Culture" and stone structure, and the cultural meaning of Fuyuan site.

Presented at Indo-Pacific Prehistoric Association Congress, Siem Reap, Cambodia, January 12-18, 2014

Author:
Frank Muyard
Assistant Professor, National Central University, Taiwan;
Research Associate, French Center for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC)
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Abstract:
The importance of Taiwan for understanding the cultural development of East and South-East Asian prehistory has regularly been asserted, and indeed supported by a series of discoveries and analyses in the past twenty years on the issues of Austronesian origins and dispersal. However few attempts to shed light on the history of Taiwan archaeology have emerged yet, especially on the main socio-cultural orientations of, and political influences on, the discipline as a state-funded scientific institution. An example is the common avoidance of the issues of nationalism and colonialism, a staple of research in the history of archaeology, and topics that have been addressed repeatedly elsewhere in East Asia. And yet Taiwan would present a particularly interesting case for such study, with a succession of colonial and political regimes in the 20th century which have embodied different nationalisms, state policies, and scientific heritages.
This paper presents some preliminary results of a research project on the links between archaeology and national narratives in Taiwan. It will attempt to sketch how archaeological work on Austronesian prehistory has been influenced by the social context in which it operates, in particular the ideological and political context, and will look into how this context has shaped the configuration of Taiwanese archaeology, its priorities, its institutions and practices. It will also inquire into how the Taiwanese case may fit into the classic types of archaeology (colonialist, imperialist, nationalist, indigenous etc.), and how the archaeological institution has interacted with the Indigenous peoples whose prehistory it is uncovering.

The article investigates long-distance interactions between the Philippines and the Thai-Malay Peninsula during the middle of the first millennium BC to the early first centuries AD. Based on a review of archaeological evidence (including pottery, glass, stone and gold ornaments), the article highlights links between the central Philippines and Palawan, and the Upper Thay-Malay Peninsula (...). Such cultural exchanges may have been facilitated by small groups of mobile middlemen from the Philippines. The article also briefly examines the connections with Taiwn and suggests that Taiwan wasnot directly involved in the South China Sea sphere of exchange.

Austronesian Prehistoric Archaeology and Taiwan's Global and Maritime Studies - 南島史前考古與台灣的全球與海洋研究

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Talk given at Graduate Institute of Taiwan Studies, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, November 29, 2013
國立台灣師範大學台灣史研究所演講摘要
日期：2013 年 11 月 29 日（五）

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Author:
Dr. Frank Muyard (梅豪方)
Assistant Professor, National Central University

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Abstract 摘要
Since the 1980s, Taiwan history has largely left behind the Sinicized reading of the country’s past imposed during martial law for a Taiwanese-centered narrative more accurately picturing the island’s people modern experience. Still, Taiwan history has mainly remained limited to the written documented history of the past 400 years, especially on the China-originated groups of immigrants. This presentation would like to discuss the need to expand the scope of Taiwan history both temporally –beyond the 17th century– and spatially –beyond the island and the Taiwan Strait– to build a truly territory-focused and comprehensive history. To that goal, archaeology, in particular the prehistoric archaeology of Taiwan’s Austronesian Indigenous peoples, is irreplaceable and should be widely known and engaged by historians and social scientists. A regional and decentered perspective also allows us to connect Taiwan history with the growing research in pre-modern Global and Maritime studies in East and South-east Asia, not only about Austronesian maritime networks but also about other regional sea-oriented groups, including the Minnan, and their exchanges with Taiwan inhabitants.

自1980年代起，台灣歷史的解讀逐漸揮別戒嚴時期以來的中國本位，轉而以台灣為出發點，更準確地描繪當地人群的現代經驗。不過，台灣歷史依然主要侷限於過去四百年的文字紀錄，其中自然又特別著重來自中國的移民群體。本報告將探討台灣歷史在時間與空間上延展的必要性：時間回溯到十七世紀以前，空間則超越台灣島嶼和台灣海峽。如此建構的歷史，才是以土地為中心的完整面貌。考古學–尤其是台灣南島原住民族的史前考古學–在此扮演難以取代的角色，也需要歷史學家與社會科學家的廣泛瞭解與參與。透過區域性、去中心化的觀點，我們可以連結台灣歷史與在東亞與東南亞地區發展中的前現代全球與海洋研究，不僅納入南島語族的海洋網絡，也涵蓋其他閩南等區域內的海洋群體，以及他們與台灣住民的交換關係。

Presented at 2014 The Second International Conference on Formosan Indigenous Peoples: Contemporary Perspectives
Academia Sinica, 15-17 September 2014

Author: Frank Muyard
National Central University, Taiwan
Associate Researcher, French Center for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC)
Email: [email protected]; [email protected]

English Abstract
The significance of Taiwan for Asia-Pacific prehistory has been well documented, especially in the research about Austronesian origins and dispersal. However few studies have looked into the relationships between the institutions, practices and narratives of archaeology and the Indigenous descendants of these Austronesian populations in Taiwan. Yet Taiwan’s succession of colonial and national regimes in the 20th century, their influence on archaeological work, and the rise of the Indigenous peoples movement that went along democratization and a re-reading of Taiwan history would seem to warrant such a study. Abroad, in the last thirty years, Indigenous peoples’ relationships with archaeological institutions have evolved in many North America and the Pacific countries also marked by settler colonialism, leading to more participation of Indigenous peoples in the archaeological study of “their” prehistory which often also happens to be the “national” prehistory, and to agreements or laws regulating the respective rights of Indigenous communities and outsider scholars over the remains and artifacts excavated (like NAGPRA in the United States).
This paper aims to shed some light on the current situation in Taiwan regarding these issues. We will look into what kind of general provisions for the respect of Indigenous peoples’ rights and perspectives are in place at various political and institutional levels to oversee archaeological research; how state institutions involved in archaeology integrate Indigenous peoples, and their knowledge and interests, in planning, research and administration of archaeological studies; and how Indigenous peoples perceive the archaeological institutions and their work on sites related to some of their direct and indirect ancestral groups. Beyond practical aspects, a major issue revolves around the question of who symbolically and materially “owns” the prehistoric past, and how to articulate the rights and interests of the state institutions, the archaeological community, and the Indigenous peoples regarding its uncovering.

本論文獲國立臺灣史前文化博物館獎助 琉球列島可分為北中南三大文化圈，其中北琉球與中琉球的新石器時代文化 和日本列島的繩文文化密切相關，但南琉球同一時期的文化內涵與繩文文化差距 甚大，反與位於東南亞地區的史前文化有較多相似之處。與琉球列島同屬東亞島 弧的台灣島鄰接於琉球列島南端，過去曾有多位學者針對兩地史前文化關係存否 有所爭議，指出南琉球與台灣東海岸遺物的相似處，如局部磨製石斧與下田原式 陶器，但討論限於少數器種，結論也僅止於指出部份特徵的類似性，無法進一步 討論兩區域史前文化間的關係。 筆者認為過去發掘資料有限，且研究多注重於特殊器物，少全貌觀點或納入 文化發展的環境背景作探討。再者日本與台灣考古學使用的器物分類系統不同， 部分相同器物被分置於不同分類中，造成比較研究的困難。由於近年來資料增加， 並有注重整體觀點及人類能動性的技術選擇理論發展，因此筆者認為可在釐清器 物分類後，以技術選擇觀點重新審視台灣與琉球的史前文化關係。 本文將選定過去指出最多相似性的新石器時代文化遺址，首先探討兩地出土 遺物的分類方式與類型定義，究明遺物類型的異同，以避免分類系統不同造成研 究誤差。而後比較遺址器種與形制，來討論兩地器物組合的相似性。並說明南琉 球與台灣東海岸花蓮溪口新石器時代文化具有的器種與形制概念相同，但數量比 例不同，藉此進一步詮釋兩地居民史前生業及文化的整體特質的異同，同時討論 技術選擇的內涵與成因，以及兩地文化關係的本質。 關鍵字：琉球列島、台灣東海岸、下田原期、新石器時代、比較研究、類型學、 技術選擇理論 IV V Abstract The Ryukyu Islands can be culturally divided into North, Middle and South Ryukyu. According to the style of artifacts, the Neolithic cultures in North and Middle Ryukyu had close relationships with the Jomon Culture in Kyushu. On the contrary, the Neolithic culture, Shimotabaru, in South Ryukyu is quit distinctive from the cultures in the north, while some types of artifacts are similar to the ones belong to Neolithic cultures in Southeast Asia, especially partially polished stone adzes and Shimotabaru Pottery.