Changbin culture on Taiwan: history of investigations and basic characteristics

Purpose. The paper describes the most ancient archaeological culture of Taiwan and its significance for the reconstruction of the early stage of the human society’s development in the region. Results. Changbin, the culture of the Late Paleolithic Age, named after Changbin Township in Taidong County on the eastern coast of the island and its southern extremities where it was discovered. Excavations of the primary site, Baxiandong (Baxian caves; or Pahsientung), started in 1968, with new findings being made nowadays. The Baxian sea-cave samples were tested with radiocarbon measurement to have been dated from 15 to 5 thousand years ago, making earlier dates (around 50,000 years ago) debatable. The bulk of artifacts found includes chipped stone and bone tools, mainly of them are flint scrapers, sharp-edged flake tools, pebble chopping tools, shell scrapers and also tools made of bone, such as wedges, stitching awls and fish hooks. The ancient people, who lived in the caves, hunted, fished and gathered seafood on the coast. Typlogically, the Changbin tools are similar to the Hoabinhian industry. It is possible that Changbinhians came to Taiwan from the Southeast China, but also probably from the Phillipines. At its late stage, the Changbin culture overlaps with the Neolithic Dabenkeng culture (about 5000-2500 years BC), but there is no evidence to any contacts between them. Conclusion. Changbin Culture is extremely important for the understanding of the origin of the first settlements in prehistorical Taiwan. Farther research can bring new results in revealing the features of anthropogenesis on the territory of the Eastern Asia. Detailed reconstruction of the stages of development of this territory, with special attention to the initial settlement of Taiwan, is necessary to understand the basic characteristics of the cultural evolution of the early cultures in the region and can help solve the problem of the spread of a modern anthropological type in ecumene, make possible the identifying the ways of ancient migrations in the Asia-Pacific region. The initial period of studies of Baxian caves made possible to formulate the tasks for the new search, the answers to which will be received within the next stage of the archaeological works, having begun about 10 years ago.