Before the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, known as V.O.C.) set her first trade post and colony in Today’s Tainan in 1624, Taiwan, which has been known by Chinese, Japanese and Western adventurers and sailors, has already entered her historical age officially. But we must not forget that the people who didn’t invent their own writing language, had also developed a successful and stable local community before the coming of the outsiders. The situation of Taiwan prehistory is quite similar to the case of North America and Australia. The ancient life of the aborigine people shall be understood by the archaeological fieldwork and research. Through the hard work which are done by the archaeologists (maybe some degrees of assistance from cultural anthropologists), the door to the unknown age is opened for us now.

After 100 years of research, more than 2,000 archaeological sites has already been identified and excavated. The Shih San Hang Site, which is located in the southern bank of the Tamsui estuary, has revealed so many interesting clues of the life and culture of the ancient Shih San Hang people. Their story must be traced back to 1,800 years ago. These people chose the alluvial plain which is exactly between Guan Ying Mountain and Tamsui River, as their home and the stage of their own story.

According to the archaeologists’ research, the most important discovery of the Shih San Hang people is the evidence of the iron-smelting technology. Most archaeologists agree that before 2000 years ago, the technology standard of Taiwan still remained in the neolithic age. The major materials of the daily use were stone, wood, bone, horn, and tooth. But in Shih San Hang, archaeologists have excavated a huge amount of iron-smelting residues, the remains of iron-smelting workshop, and items which were made of iron. Because this finding is the oldest evidence of the iron smelting technology (which can be traced back to 1800 years ago), the archaeologists suggest that the Shih San Hang people was the first community in the island, who knew about the secret of iron-smelting. We are not sure about how did the Shih San Hang people get wise to the technology of iron-smelting. Maybe it was simply because the good luck came to some smart Shih San Hang people. Maybe Shih San Hang people learned the iron-smelting technology from the foreigners, such like Han merchants from Asia continent. No matter what is the truth of this story, we are sure that the people on this island started to use metal in their daily life. These pioneers of metal use may gather the iron ore sand and built the iron smelting workshop beside the origin of ore sand. They smelted and refined the ore sand and made them into different kinds of items and tools. Did they monopolize the iron-smelting knowledge? Maybe! We found many iron made items in the many ancient community sites on the island. But we have not found any iron-smelting workshops in other archaeological site. You may say that Shih San Hang might be the iron industry center of the island before the colonization of Netherlanders.

Besides iron-smelting, Shih San Hang people also knew well about other techniques. The archaeologists have found extremely well made artifacts such like bronze knife handle, anthropomorphic jar, anthropomorphic figurine, and delicate gold ornament. These artifacts have shown us that the Shih San Hang people are no barbaric tribe at all. They did not only earn a good living, but also have abundant leisure hours. That was why they could create so many beautiful artifacts which had nothing to do with their daily life. Through these artifacts, we could try to understand their mind and unique aesthetics.

To be continued...

(All Pictures are the courtesy by the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica.)