| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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It is also interesting to note that the Chinese archaeologists never mentioned Maglioni‘s investigations during this period. The sites in Haifeng (Hiofeng in Maglioni‘s report) that Maglioni visited in the 1930s were re-investigated by archaeologists in Guangdong in the 1950s (GPM, 1961), but they were never evaluated against the information Maglioni reported. The survey report published in 1961 only briefly mentioned these sites in Haifeng were sand dune sites, which “contained rich remains, and there are plenty of stone tools, but the variety and form are simple. The associated pottery is mostly coarse sand-tempered … ” (Ibid, p. 651).
Southern Zhejiang Province
This area was the mostly poorly understood region in Southeast China. From 1950 to 1983, only two brief reports of the discovered Neolithic sites were published (Fang, 1956; Yu, 1983). In 1978, four burials were exposed in a construction project at Longshan, Rui‘an County, the Southernmost county in Zhejiang Province. The pottery has dark slips on the surface, similar to those found in northern Fujian (Yu, 1983). In this brief report, Yu also mentioned the collection of painted pottery at the Heyushan site and the Shanqianshan site in Rui‘an. These isolated discoveries provided clues for future investigations.
Third Period: The Middle 1980s to Present
The last two decades of the 20th century witnessed an expansion of archaeological field works in Fujian, southern Zhejiang, and eastern Guangdong Provinces. In comparison to the first and second periods, both the number of excavated sites and the research topics have significantly increased. Just like the second period, these archaeological projects were conducted by archaeologists affiliated to each of the three provinces.