Lim Tiao-khe (林朝棨) and Formosan Prehistory

T. R. Cheng

Lim Tiao-khe (林朝棨), a professor of Geology at National Taiwan University (NTU) since late 1940s is not a household name. However, his unprecedented discovery of 10,000 to 40,000 year-old stone tools from the “Pah-Shen-Tong (八仙洞, 8-Hermit Caves)” in southeast Formosa laid the foundation of Formosan archaeological prehistory. Here, Formosan History is defined from the time that empirically, if not systematically, written records on the inhabitants in a geographic inclusion begin. Proceeding to the time into remote ancient belongs to the Prehistory. Lim also discovered “13-hang” archaic site (十三行遺址, 13-Gatherings‘?’). Unfortunately, it became the garbage dumping ground and destroyed by Chiang Kai-shek and Chinese authorities. Lim’s laboratory at NTU was also ransacked and torched. However, the archaic site has stood firm against evil forces and preserved for Formosan descendants to explore further.

In order to appreciate Lim’s monumental contributions better, I have divided Formosan past into three major historical periods prior to 1662. They are in chronological order as follows: A) Pah-Shen-Tong--Peopling of Formosa; B) Austronesian (AN) Languages-- Languages and culture development and dispersion; and C) The Formosan Encounter--Beginning of Formosan History.

Prologue to Formosan Past

Peopling of Formosa could date back to nearly 40,000 years ago (YA) but was not later than the last Glaciation Peak that ended 12,000 YA. Thereafter, Formosa becomes an island in the open ocean separated from a nearest, a desolate locale along the eastern Eurasian coast by some 100 miles. Pescadores (Pen-fu) are about two-thirds away to Formosa from Mainland China and were below the sea level until 5,000YA. The 100 miles is too far a voyage for anatomically modern humans (AMH) in the Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (H/G) stage and in the early Neolithic farmer subsistence as well, to overcome without adequate seafaring knowledge and technology. Such marine technology was absent 5,000YA, and most likely even until two millennia ago, in China.

On a fateful bright sunny day in 1517, a Portuguese merchant ship in a trading mission to Japan, was sailing northward between Formosa and Pescadores of the Formosa Strait when sailors on board noted in the eastern horizon an Island emanating vibrant green hue and shouted out “Ilha Formosa!” Formosans fondly called that part of channel of Formosa Strait, “O-tsui-kau (Black Water Stream),” as it long-served as the natural impediment to ward off foreign subjects ease dropping the pristine island. It is also the only branch of the magnificent circum Pacific Kuroshio Current in the Northern Hemisphere. Later, Portuguese placed this Island called Formosa on the world map for the first time in the human culture history. Being at a remote geographic location in the open ocean, Formosans continued to enjoy the pristine status exclusively for the Islanders for another 100+ years. They lost the tranquility when the Dutch landed on the Island in 1623 at first and then occupied formerly at the dawn of 1624 until 1662 for a total of 39 years.

The Written Testimony to Begin Formosan History

When landed Formosa in 1623, the Dutch discovered that Island inhabitants spoke languages similar to aborigines in Batavia, Indonesia where the Headquarters of the Dutch East India Company in Asia was located. As we know today, the languages belong in the Austronesian Language Family (ALF), which came initially from Formosa. The ALF has the closest common ancestry to the Tai-Ka-Dai Family spoken in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia in the Indochina Peninsula but relate only distantly to the Sino-Tibetan Family spoken by Chinese. Historians generally fail to recognize correctly the Formosan history before Koxinga’s colonization of the Island in 1662. Furthermore, by the time Koxinga arrived, Formosa had already entered the fully-fledged Neolithic farmers’ subsistence from the Paleolithic Hunter-gatherers living style. Therefore, the first stage of culture transformation was accomplished during the Dutch but not under Ch’in Dynasty or by Chinese Huns. Note also, an extensive population growth generally results by entering into farmers’ stage. It counters China stories contending to forge such growth from immigration en masse by new Chinese settlers. Moreover, they comprised only the male gender of hard laborers who were known locally as “Ro-hun-khas” or “wandering vagabonds.”

That the future Austronesian (AN) speakers peopled Formosa by 12,000YA to probably as early as 40,000YA is attested by discoveries of archaic stone tools of the “Changbin culture” that Lim excavated from Taitung in southeast Formosa. As mentioned above, Formosa was inhabited by the AN speakers exclusively until the end of Dutch period in 1662. Thereafter, the AN speakers gradually diminished during the China colonization in the following 233 years until 1895. Today those claiming the AN identity numbered around a million. Some Austronesian Formosans (AFs) continue and prefer to living in higher elevations. However, the AFs will certainly increase since more Taiwanese begin to realize their true ancestral identity in AN speakers of Formosa.

“The Formosan Encounter”

The monumental historical book, “The Formosan Encounter,” assembled and edited by Leonard Blusse and his Dutch associates was published from Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines in 1999. As clearly noted, the Dutch dealt matters, large or small, strictly with the AFs in AN languages throughout the period, but not in Chinese Holo/Hakka as pro-China centrists tried hard to implicate. Regardless of which languages speak today, Formosans peopled and owned the Island first and spoke the AN languages exclusively before 1662. They experienced multiple foreign occupations and changed languages in accordance with each occupier: Formosans spoke AN languages initially; did Holo/Hakka of China dialects by 1895; were fluent in Japanese by 1945; and are using Chinese Mandarin, today. Obviously, the language alone is a poor indicator of the ethnic and racial origin and the identity of indigenes in the geographically isolated area.

Lim and Formosan Geology

Lim was already a geology professor when I first learned his name as a student at NTU in the mid-1950s. At that time, I spent more time in the main library reading Japanese literatures than studying the requirement courses. One day I came across a booklet by Lim came out from then the major Japanese publishing company, Iwanami (Rock-wave) Bunko (Literature Series). I said to myself, “Wow! He must be a big-shot to be able to publish a book by that company.” I do not remember the exact title of the book but it is certainly on Formosan Geology. After reading the book, I was utterly thrilled to learn that Formosa has a slice of the Philippines tectonic plate that runs from Taitung in east to Hentsung in south. It makes sense since Kungting Park in the area is famous for the unique fauna (animal kinds) and flora (plant kinds) from the rest of the Island. As a biology student interested in evolution, I know the biomass and geography go hand in hand.

The geologic evidence contradicts what I learned in the high school geology. Teachers had to echo China dogma telling students “Taiwan is a part of China territory since the entire island is within the Continental Shelf.” Here, the tectonic plate is a part of the “Eurasia Continental Shelf” but “Eurasia” is conveniently excluded to implicate China. Chinese call China Mainland simply “Continent or Mainland (Ta-ru)” by omitting “China.” Therefore, “Continent” means China Continent and “Eurasian Continental Shelf,” Continental Shelf implicating “China Continental Shelf.” By undermining the presence of the Philippines tectonic plate, Formosa becomes totally engulfed inside the “Continental shelf” and, therefore, as the de facto portion of China Mainland. Lim joined by all geology professionals of the world described otherwise, that is, the geology tells Formosa bears a portion of land coming from the Philippines tectonic plate!

Some may remember another geology story on Taiwan that Chinese love to tell. They contend the Island is moving toward, and eventually will fuse to “(China) Continent.” The Philippines plate indeed pushes Formosa toward the Continent at a rate of 2-3 cm per year. Formosa is a hundred miles away from the nearest China shoreline. Allowing the nature takes her course to the wishful direction at the rate, Formosa will reach the nearest shoreline in about 60 million years. What unaccounted for, however, is the counter force exerting at Formosan northeast where the Island meets the Ryukyu tectonic plate. The latter pulls the Island away from the continent at a rate of about four cm per year. The net result from a simple-minded calculation is obvious; Formosa is moving away more from, than closing in to, China, albeit very slowly!

Peopling of Formosa

In late 1960s, Lim excavated “8-shen (Bashian) Caves” from Taitung shoreline in the southeast Formosa. The “8-shen” means “Eight Hermits” but the place should also be remembered as “Ilin Caves” to honor the associated legend of a beautiful maiden, Ilin, killed at the site. Archaic finds from the caves are extremely important because they denote clearly that the Formosan ancestors were in Formosa at latest 12,000YA to as early as 40,000YA. Recently, Tajima, based on the study of two mitochondria DNA sequences reported that Formosa was peopled by 26,000 to 12,000YA. Possibly also the peopling into the Island could have happened in multiple waves.

After leaving Africa 60,000-50,000 YA, the AMH, reached most habitable environment of the Old World by 40,000YA. Formosa was connected intermittently to the Eurasian Continent by land bridges until the last Glaciation Peak ended 12,000 YA. Then, Formosa became the sea-locked Island isolated hundreds of miles from Eurasian Continent. The H/Gs could have peopled the Island via land bridges at any time between 40,000 and 10,000 YA. Thereafter, no outsiders settled into the Island in the open ocean until 1623 when the Dutch landed and subsequently occupied Formosa. Between 40,000 YA and the last Glaciation Peak, multiple entries into the Island were feasible. However, linguistically, it favors the single entry or multiple entries with peoples sharing the same genetic ancestry for the reason explained below.

Landmass Changes, Land Bridges, and Human Journey

Based on the oldest archaic relicts found in southeast Formosa, the earliest founder ancestors probably had entered there at first. During the Glaciation Peaks, land bridges extended from Formosa to south along southeast off China, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Borneo, and the Philippines in eastern Eurasia. However, the Bashi Channel divides Formosa from the Philippines and the South China Sea voids the direct connection of the Philippines eastward to Eurasia Continent. In north, the land bridge extended from Formosan north through off Eurasia shoreline to Japan. Japan Sea was a land locked lake during the Glaciation Peaks. Formosan ancestors probably journeyed from somewhere in the Indochina Peninsula, coasting north along eastern shoreline off the Eurasia Continent. This is consistent with the shared common linguistic ancestry of the Proto-AN and the Proto-Tai-Ka-Dai Families in the Indochina Peninsula. Journey along shorelines, moreover, was of a preferred route by ancient people because of rich accessible food supplies and open fields to recognize quickly closing dangers. The peripatetic H/G probably journeyed further north to eventually enter and settle into the land that became Formosa today.

By contrast, peopling from Eurasia directly into northwest Formosa is less tenable since it meant to cross lands of various geography with little insured food supplies and geological impediments not to mention the hidden dangers from predators. There is no archaic finds of the comparable chronology to support the scenario, too. Interestingly, the last exhibition entitled “17th Century Formosa, Holland, and East Asia,” that toured from Formosa to Germany lacked 17th century China artifacts at all. Perhaps, credible Chinese archaic artifacts of any sorts in the period simply do not exist on Formosan land and, therefore, are not recovered from the Island to be included in the exhibition. Anecdotes bullying China’s culture contributions to Formosa around the 17th century are probably a ploy to mislead naïve Taiwanese into believing the Hun ancestry dogma.

Geologically, eastern side of Formosa descends steeply into the sea. The highest Kunlun of the 8-Shen Caves is some 130m above the sea level, about 200m from the shoreline, and ascends further west into the Coastal Mountains. Before linking further west into the Central Mountains is the valley where the railroad is built today to connect Hualien in the north to Taitung in the south. All caves are located in the close vicinity favoring the easy communal livings. They have ideal hunting surroundings in the ascending background deep into mountains and thick bushes, woods, and thickets that are teemed with wild boars and other game animals. The broad fishing ground that caves face has clear, open views in front and on both sides, and is close to caves for quick retreats and hidings from dangers. The gorge-like geography with little plains might have compelled ancestors to expand either westward into the Coastal and Central Mountains and further beyond or move north and northwest along shorelines exploring new habitats.

Conventional dispersion scheme favors that inhabitants of initial settlers in western plains were chased into higher ground or mountain depth by new settlers who, perhaps “waded” hundreds of miles of sea by crude and primitive boats available to these impoverished, Huns from Fukien and Canton provinces. According to “China Stories,” it started as early as Sun Chueng in the “Period of Disunion” who allegedly dispatched army in 230 AD to attack the East Barbarians claimed to be Taiwan today. There are several other stories to brag the connection of Formosa to China before Chinese Koxinga finally took the Island in 1662. As to 39 years’ occupation of Formosa by the Dutch prior to Koxinga, it is mysteriously absent in vocabularies from China historians.

Insulted Formosans

Chinese Hun classified the indigenes into the “Cooked barbarians (熟番)” meaning tamed, well behaved, and easily coerced to follow Han customs and slavery. By contrast, the “Uncooked raw barbarians (生番)” meant all the reversely behaved aborigines of the cooked. The ‘Raw’ would fiercely fight against Hun elites who robbed their women, lands, and used every trick they could try to gain the personal wealth. Tactics to discredit and to replace the indigenes linguistically and culturally with China doctrines and falsified ethnic identity appeared successful. Today most Taiwanese believe in Hun ancestry anecdotes. As it becomes clearer now that Taiwanese with superb long careers and experience in Chinese controlled organizations, political or otherwise, are often denied their deserved treatments, consistently replaced or forced out from important and higher positions by less experienced, young Chinese purely based on the ethnicity. If Taiwanese cannot realize the true pictures they are facing, the future of Taiwanese to have their own land and identity will be compromised or perish entirely from the face of the earth.

By contrast, there is little evidence to assume that the raw indigenes being chased out to accept new habitats in deep mountains. It is a fact of matter that indigenes had settled in mountains soon after peopled Formosa. Some preferred staying at a higher ground in peace and avoiding malaria epidemic since the lower temperatures at higher elevation impede mosquito growth and thus, can escape from the fatal parasitic disease of yesteryears. We must also note that Japanese eradicated the malaria from the island after they colonized Formosa from Chinese authorities in 1895. The disease was already noted during the Dutch colonial days. Chinese, however, did nothing to deal with the malaria and other communal diseases during the first 233 years’ occupation of Formosa!

Austronesian Languages

Formosans also developed the AN Language Family in the Island while in isolation. One proto-AN language among 10 others left Formosa 6,000 to 5,000 YA and diversified and dispersed to encompass eventually from Madagascar in the west edge of the Indian Ocean and Easter Island in the east, Hawaii in the north, and New Zealand in the south in the vast Pacific Ocean. During the first stay of the language in Malaysia and Indonesia for some 2,000 years, the language had diversified extensively to form the Malayo-Polynesian Language Subfamily, the main language branch to disperse eventually into the vast areas mentioned above. This language dispersion was accomplished even before the dawn of a millennium ago. They diversified extensively to about 1,200 languages, which was the largest family at the time. Jared Diamond lauded the Formosan achievement as “Taiwan’s Gift to the World” as he reported in February 17, 2000 issue of “Nature.” Formosans should feel thrilled and be proud in that part of the glorious past history.

Tribal Dispersion in the Island

The linguistic distribution of proto-AN vs AN languages and chronological and archaeological findings exhibit the same mode of tribal dispersion radiating from the presumed southeast origin: south to north and west to east. As noted also in “The Formosan Encounter”, natives in plains often escaped into a higher ground and deep mountain for months or even years to elude Dutch authorities. The plain and mountain indigenes appear to coexist peacefully without serious territorial squabbles. Escaping into mountains could be as simple as going back to old homes from where they came from to begin with. They seemed to feel solace instead of hostility and little threat to the surrounding inhabitants. Often these escapees would return to the plains as though nothing had happened. Their return into the villages again, from where they temporarily deserted occurred as though following a routine. Plains aborigines became used to the newly introduced culture and customs and transformed their status from the Formosan aborigines to the PiN Pou after the long-stay in plains and in culture changes but maintaining their aborigine Formosan identity. Some finally became overnight Chinese or Hun Taiwanese as they began to speak China dialects by giving up their mother AN languages.

Genetics and DNA evidence are accumulating that contradict Formosans being ethnically related directly to Hun Chinese. Rather, the former is closely related both genetically and linguistically to ancient southeast peoples in the Indochina Peninsula but neither to the southern nor to the northern Hun Chinese.

Conclusion

Formosans peopled the island in the remote past and spoke the AN languages they developed, nurtured, and augmented in the Island. Whereas some 26 AN languages were suspected to have remained in the Island over a century ago, that number shrinks to 14 or even less today according to Robert Blust. The dwindling numbers of indigenous languages, albeit a common trend in the world, are sad especially because the associated legends told in those languages unique to the speakers will be lost forever. While Formosans kept the pristine Island intact in the ensuing time from distant past until the Dutch landed and colonized in 1623, the first colonizer, nevertheless, contributed 39 years of solid and detailed documents to describing the true Formosan past. “Changbin” means “Long Beach.” Perhaps, under the long pristine beach the treasure of past Formosa History remains hidden. We are to explore further the treasure coast that Professor Lim Tiao-khe first excavated and reported nearly half a century ago. (0607)