In a little mountain town surrounded by enchanting scenery, a large number of sarcophagi were discovered. The experts and reporters came and went. The site was ceaselessly trampled, and a popular movement arose to preserve the ruins. The story is not over yet. . . .

The Hanjen Traditional Healing Center, Downtown Puli.

Six-year-old Tang Tang sits at the wooden table drawing a picture. Underneath the banana tree, a butterfly frolics. The sun hangs high in the sky, and the vibrant green grass rustles at the edge of the river. This is Puli, and it is a child's world. In the blank space of the picture, Tang Tang is drawing a bunch of circles, one after the other. Each round circle is cut straight across by two short lines. These elliptical shapes that look like pebbles float high across the picture.

The circles that Tang Tang is drawing are not balloons that have floated in from outer space. They are hitching stones, frequently found in ancient ruins. The short lines inside the circles are grooves that people of antiquity carved with stone axes. Ropes or fishing nets were tied to these grooves for use in catching fish. If they were to see this picture, all the people who are concerned for the ancient ruins of Puli would have to smile knowingly.

Stone coffins unearthed in Puli!

In January of this year, Puli Township, famous for its charming scenery, became the source of some exciting news--prehistoric sarcophagi had been dug up. Furthermore, the media pronounced them "the largest find of sarcophagi in the history of Taiwan."

In the excavation of an archaeological site, the discovery of sarcophagi is usually an exciting event. The appearance of stone coffins usually indicates that the area may harbor the traces of an ancient people. Many details of the interior and exterior of the coffins--for instance, the direction that the coffin was laid, the funerary accessories within it, the manner of burial, or the burial tools--can all bear witness to the ancient people's society and rituals.

The site of the sarcophagi is on Kuantao Mountain, not far from the center of Puli. After disembarking from their vehicles, visitors must proceed 40 minutes by foot to the destination, a privately owned mountain slope planted with varnish trees and bamboo groves, christened by archaeologists the "Shihtunkeng Ruins." They sit at an elevation of more than 600 meters above sea level.

Just like a small pebble thrown onto the surface of water, the excavation of the Shihtunkeng Ruins stirred up a series of larger ripples. One reason was because the discovery found its way into newspapers all over the world, and many people knew that now Puli had more than picturesque natural beauty and such special local products as rice noodles and shaoxing wine. The citizens of Puli also possessed a glorious treasure--cultural property left behind by people of an age long passed.

But the cultural property of Puli's ancient residents was not limited to Shihtunkeng alone.

Stumbling across the Tamalin Ruins

The fact that ruins could be found at Puli High School had been brought up as early as the press conference announcing the investigation of the Shihtunkeng Ruins. At the time of the meeting local people incessantly debated such questions as whether the Shihtunkeng Ruins were genuinely important, whether they should excavate right away or whether they should temporarily put off excavation and first work to protect the site. Which local administrative unit should oversee and manage the ruins? Most importantly, how would the funds be raised? And how should they deal with artifacts like stone knives and stone axes that had already been picked up off the ground?

Just as everyone was yelling in a disorderly fashion, one voice suddenly piped up. Of course it's important right now for everyone to be worried about future problems involved with the Shihtunkeng Ruins, but Shihtunkeng is still relatively far away from downtown Puli, in a place people rarely visit. Furthermore, the ground is only being used for growing crops; this kind of agricultural development does relatively little damage to the relics.

"Right now the thing we should worry about most is that there are places that have long been identified as ancient ruins right in the center of Puli, but because of local development, these ruins will very soon crumble into dust," writer Liao Chia-chan loudly exclaimed. A conflict between the construction of the Puli High School dormitory and the preservation of ancient ruins leapt onto the stage of local affairs.

Fabulously famous Tamalin

When education collides against culture, when campus planning conflicts with the discovery of ancient ruins, which side would you choose?

The fact that Puli High School is the location of major ruins has been known for quite some time. During the era of Japanese occupation, these ruins were christened "Tamalin" and identified as an old settlement of the Pazeh, a tribe of plains aborigines who had migrated from Fengyuan near Taichung. And it was believed to be an important site for explaining the "shifting relationships among Taiwan Indonesians, and the relationship between the plains tribes and the mountain tribes."

The large group referred to in those days as "Indonesians" is today commonly termed the "Austronesians." The distribution of this ethnic and linguistic group is extremely broad, from the islands of the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, to Indochina and the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia, as far north as Taiwan, as far south as New Zealand, as far east as Easter Island, which lies to the west of South America, and as far west as the island of Madagascar off the African coast. The total population is more than 200 million. All the indigenous people of Taiwan, the mountain tribes and the assimilated plains tribes alike, fall in this category.

At the time a number of well-known Japanese anthropologists, including Torii Ryuzo, visited the site. Kanese Kitakeo and others undertook excavations. After Taiwan was returned to Chinese control, Liu Chih-wan, who hails from Puli and today works as a researcher for the Academia Sinica, performed a test dig of the ruins. In 1949, Shih Chang-ju, a scholar from the Academia Sinica's Institute of History and Philology, led a group of research personnel here and formally opened the site up for excavation. The locale is currently the site of Puli High School, the Ailan Church and Hsingling Temple.

"Following our work at the ruins of Yin in Anyang, this was the first excavation the Institute of History and Philology did of Taiwanese ruins after we moved over from the mainland," explains Liu Yi-chang, associate researcher at the Academia Sinica's Institute of History and Philology. "It was also the first time Chinese people took up work from the hands of the Japanese."

Unfortunately, they have been restricted in terms of manpower and funding. The initial excavation report had to wait until December of 1987 before it could be put in order and published by the archaeologist Liu Yi-chang.

In 1992, the Ministry of the Interior commissioned scholars to do a survey of 109 major archaeological sites throughout Taiwan. In Nantou County 14 ancient ruins made the list, and Tamalin was one of them. The report that was published at the time clearly stated the entire range of the site, and furthermore requested relevant units to "quickly plan preservation of certain areas and designate them protected historical landmarks."

Underneath the grayish black clay

Although Tamalin was listed by scholars as the site of important ruins, other people outside of archaeological circles, including administrative personnel from provincial, county and municipal levels of government, had no idea Puli had a "historical landmark" of such immense reputation. For the residents of Puli themselves, the Tamalin Ruins were like a phrase from a textbook, before the incident broke out into the open. And perhaps when people heard it, they felt little curiosity.

But the people of Puli also seemed to know that underneath the grayish black clay of the mesa, there was unquestionably hidden an extraordinary secret. Whenever there was a construction site, a few bizarre pieces of stone, some large, some small, would appear on the surface of the ground. Some of them were still recognizable in shape; it was obvious that they were knives, axes, arrowheads or other crafted objects that people had used at one time. Huge stone slabs made local residents suspect that they were the lids of coffins for some people of long ago.

Next to the Puli High School, the elderly gentleman Pan Ming-chao, said to be a descendant of plains aborigines, pulled out of his room a treasure which he had stored away for many years. In a disordered wooden box, he had packed away things that were dug up by a backhoe when his family was rebuilding their house. Among these objects were pieces of "Taiwanese jade," of a milky yellow with a tint of gray, and streaked with curving veins, about the size of NT$10 coins, but thicker. Some people conjectured that they were ancient coins. Others suggested they were pieces of jade cut away to make earrings. He stored away the jade, as well as some axe heads and knife-shaped stone objects "to keep as memorabilia," he says.

Elementary school teacher Tu Chiang-ying lives near Hsingling Temple, the landmark which marks the entrance to Puli. He remarks that before the military barracks in his neighborhood had been built, every time it rained, stone coffins would appear in the earth. A great number would surface from the muddy soil, "like mushrooms after the rain," he says. Locals had long held a legend that all of Ailan Mesa was an aborigine settlement, and that the stone coffins sticking up from the ground were aborigine graves.

When ruins run into construction

According to the research report published by archaeologists in 1987, the entire Tamalin ruins includes most of the land currently in the Ailan district of Puli. Today several of Puli's large public buildings, such as Hsingling Temple, the Puli Christian Hospital, Puli High School, Ailan Elementary School, and a nearby military base, as well as a number of private homes of various sizes scattered randomly throughout, are all buildings which, from the viewpoint of archaeologists, should not have been constructed. They have caused considerable damage to the ruins.

Teng Hsiang-yang, a doctor at the Hsiang-yang Examination Clinic and a writer, explains that the damage to the ruins caused by various kinds of construction is a problem that has been around for many years. Before the Puli High School incident, the vast majority of construction projects carried out on top of the ruins were undertaken in an ordinary manner with no one being aware of the damage, or if people were aware, without anyone voicing a strong opinion. Teng Hsiang-yang, who at one time worked at the Puli Christian Hospital, saw with his own eyes a backhoe crush a row of sarcophagi. When Pan Ming-chao's family home, located behind Puli High School, was being rebuilt, Teng came to the construction site to have a look, and even implored the Pan family to preserve some sections of earth that held some of the objects, but in the end, under the drone of bulldozers, the relics were crumpled into dust. "Besides being brokenhearted and making a record of them with my camera, there was nothing else I could do," says Teng Hsiang-yang.

"Saving ancient relics isn't like protecting animals, whose populations you can build up again. Once they have been dug up by the backhoes, you can't bring them back," says Teng Hsiang-yang. Some "cultural people" in the town could not bear to sit by and watch the destruction of these ancient objects, and relying on their own energies, they made use of limited time and resources to fight against the backhoes. For example, every time he heard tell of a construction project going on within the range of the ruins, Tacheng Middle School teacher Chien Shih-lang would grab a metal screen and head for the dirt pile to "search for treasure," sifting out from the dirt pile shards of stone coffin and other objects stirred up by the backhoes and arranging them in separate bags. He saved them, both as a record of local history and also as classroom material of local interest.

In search of a common identity

In this way a vast amount of ancient relics were steadily leveled by excavation machines. Last year before the lunar New Year, the same scenario was about to be played out at Puli High School, but this time the situation was not quite the same. Many of Puli's residents, especially a number of "cultural people," stood up on their own initiative. Not satisfied with simply picking up things after the backhoes, they actively communicated with and warded off the organizations involved in the construction. They importuned the construction crew to "stay the execution," in hopes of preserving history.

The key person in bringing about the rescue effort of the Puli High School ruins was the writer Liao Chia-chan, who half a year previously had quit his job at the Hsinkang Cultural Education Foundation and has been constantly working to develop local culture. He wants to "be completely committed," he relates, only because he hopes that Puli will be able to find a common historical identity.

Puli was originally an area populated with a number of different tribes. According to historical records, before ethnic Chinese entered the area by force, such groups as the Atayal, the Bunun, the Sau, the Pufan (related to the Bunun), and the Meifan (related to the Atayal) lived in the valley and the surrounding mountains. After the middle of the Qing dynasty, ethnic Chinese and plains aborigines continuously moved into the Puli basin. The experience of the people of Puli is a prime example of tribes living together and assimilating.

Liao Chia-chan, who has settled down in Puli, often ponders, in a place like Puli with such a mix of various cultures, what common identity can they achieve which will bring the local people together?

From the point of view of ethnic Chinese, Puli's development was rather late in arriving. Besides looking to "historical landmarks" like temples and old buildings, Liao Chia-chan believes, "if we can learn the manifestations of the way of life cultivated by the people who lived here thousands of years ago, and we can better comprehend the primitive world before the advent of written records, then the depth and breadth of Puli people's historical identity will certainly increase. We'll have the knowledge which will lead to respect for and tolerance of the many different ethnic groups, and this will bring about a big change."

Archaeological research with backhoes?

This is the main reason he committed himself to the Puli High School ruins rescue effort. From a different angle, the tombstone controversy occurred at Puli High School, a provincial high school and an educational institution. "If we can begin our work in an educational institution, protecting these ruins, and communicating the perspective of respecting ancient humanity, then it will have a special meaning for the children and for the community," he avers. It seems that Liao Chia-chan intends to use Puli High School as a "prototype" for resolving the conflict between archaeological finds and engineering projects. He hopes they will be able to create a precedent for the 150,000 square meter area of Puli's Tamalin Ruins in which the same problem may well happen again.

Through the efforts of the culturally concerned members of the Puli community, public opinion and lobbying efforts induced an unexpected change in the construction at Puli High School. Liao Chia-chan and Chien Shih-lang first approached the principal of Puli High and expressed their hope that the dormitory's construction could be temporarily halted, and that any further decisions could be put off until after an archaeological dig was carried out.

At the beginning, the Puli High School administration was somewhat startled by the requests of this group of cultural activists.

Puli High School principal Kuo Fu-hung pointed out that the construction of the Puli High School dormitory was being carried out completely according to the law. The school had proposed the plan, and the Provincial Department of Education had listed it in its budget. The construction project had also been awarded through a public bidding. Throughout each step of the process, no one had ever told him that the Puli High School campus was located on top of ancient ruins, and that they could only begin after an archaeological dig had taken place. Suddenly archaeologists and the local cultural community believed that this spot was an important site of ancient relics. The school then suggested that the construction company assist the archaeologists, to directly use their machines to conduct the dig, giving the objects of antiquity an early "coming out," and allowing the scholars to take them away for storage and research.

Archaeology isn't digging up treasure!

The Puli High School principal's method of handling the affair won the approval of administrative agencies. Puli Mayor Chang Hung-ming believed that the township could kill two birds with one stone. They could preserve their culture, while providing for the school's need to build a new dormitory.

But as soon as this kind of opinion reached the ears of the archaeologists, it was as if a bright day had suddenly gone overcast. "If you want to excavate ruins like that, you don't need an archaeologist's ten long, hard years of study. Let the machine operators do it," said Liu Yi-chang. If artifacts within the area of a ruins are removed from their original positions, they lose their meaning. Archaeology is not digging for treasure. Liu Yi-chang pointed out that the objects unearthed from Taiwan's ancient ruins actually have a limited value on the antique market. He emphasized that if ruins are not recorded in precise detail and excavated by archaeologists, the unearthed objects alone cannot equal an archaeological dig.

After a number of hurdles were leaped, the Puli High School finally promised not only to temporarily delay the construction of the dormitory, but also not to ask the construction machines to take part. But they expressed their hope that the archaeologists could do a high-speed rescue dig within 15 days. Surprisingly, the test dig that took place between the beginning and the middle of March yielded tangible results. They discovered some exciting archaeological evidence. (See "Voices from the Grave--The Story of Tamalin Man.")

Later on, the Puli Township public works bureau took the initiative to recruit scholars and relevant administrative agencies, holding the Puli High School Tamalin Ruins Investigative Conference, at which they decided a full-scale excavation ought to take place at the original test dig site. Up through the middle of April, the archaeological dig kept going.

A boisterous season of archaeology

From the time the news of the discovery of sarcophagi at Shihtunkeng broke, up through the excavation of Puli High, the mountain town of Puli inadvertently experienced a boisterous "season of archaeology."

During the test dig period, the archaeologists volunteered, on top of their arduous work, to act as the ruins' explanatory guides. A host of people came to the site and asked any number of questions, such as "How do you know that under the ground there once lived a bunch of ancient people?" "How do you tell the level of culture?" or "What is carbon 14?" Whether or not the questions evinced a grasp of the general concepts of archaeology, they were all answered patiently.

Many citizens from the outside who were concerned about Taiwan's archaeology, especially reporters, flocked to Puli. One sinologist from Russia traveled south with the researchers "to see the big crowd." One of Taipei's newspapers featured a travel writing series of central Taiwan called "Wind, Flowers, Snow and the Moon," in which they made a rush trip to Puli High School to document the archaeologists' excavation work. Just as had always happened in the past, every outsider who arrived in Puli received the warmest hospitality. Old friends who met again were particularly happy. The Tamalin affair magnetically drew in the well- wishers of Puli from all directions.

From ignorance to understanding, many people unwittingly received an education in prehistory. Those who benefited the most were the local children of Puli. Every day or so a class of a few dozen students would arrive at the site at Puli High School. One could frequently see teachers gesticulating as they explained what a sarcophagus is, and how the prehistoric people used stone axes and stone knives. Puli High School and Puli's highest institution of learning, National Chi Nan University, specially invited Liu Yi-chang to give a lecture to the people of Puli on archaeology in Taiwan and the significance of the Tamalin find.

Today in Puli, everyone from teachers and students to employees of the agricultural association and the street peddlers outside the school, has gained some understanding of "Puli Man" who "lived just like us on Ailan Mesa two thousand years ago." Sometimes when archaeological scholars were giving an explanation at the ruins, some people were able to bring up a number of penetrating questions. If the people of Tamalin back then had warlike behavior, would the stone coffin slabs show traces of this? Why are some of the sarcophagi situated close to the settlement, while others like the ones at Shihtunkeng are arranged in a "cemetery"? What kind of relationship does this have with the lives and rituals of the people back then?

Yet in the midst of the local fever over archaeology, some people paid no heed. Tamalin's many revelations had no emotional impact upon them.

Unclear legal mandate?

At the Tamalin Ruins Investigative Conference, many Nantou County administrative officials constantly brought up such questions as, are the Tamalin Ruins actually a "protected historical landmark"? And what is their value? What they were concerned about was whether Tamalin was a historical landmark whose preservation was mandated by national law. If not, then it was not the responsibility of the local authorities, and they could afford to ignore the issues of protection and management which would follow.

That local officials would disregard Tamalin in this way is probably not out of line with the civil service's general philosophy that "one task less is better than one task more." But the obscure difference in legal terms between ruins and historical landmarks is the ultimate source of the problem.

The Cultural Heritage Preservation Law clearly states that historical landmarks include "ancient buildings, ruins and other cultural remnants" and further stipulates that "when public and private construction projects encounter historical landmarks, they should stop the process of construction." Nevertheless, of the 284 "historical landmarks" throughout Taiwan officially listed by the Ministry of the Interior, only twelve are ruins.

When administrative agencies handle ruins which have not been listed as protected historical landmarks, even if they are willing to research and protect them, they face such dilemmas as not being able to list the expenses in their budgets and not being able to find personnel to help. Puli Mayor Chang Hung-ming frankly comments, it's not that the township doesn't value Tamalin, but in terms of the process of legal recognition, the status of the ruins remains in limbo. He does not know whether township-level agencies, which are always lacking resources, can put much energy into it.

The question is, with so many anthropologists' reports and research surveys from the era of Japanese occupation up to today, why are they still unable to prove the importance of the Tamalin Ruins?

Ministry of the Interior Historical Landmark Preservation Department director Chao Wen-chieh says that it's not that administrative agencies do not respect the conclusions of scholars, but according to the Self-Governance Law for Provinces and Counties, the preservation of counties' and cities' ancient objects and landmarks is a responsibility of the locality. It should be reported upward from the local level, and only after the Ministry of the Interior undertakes an investigation can it confirm its legal status.

But in actuality, in 1992 scholars made the recommendation that the Tamalin Ruins be "speedily planned for preservation and designated a historical landmark," yet the Ministry of the Interior took no action. Even this academic report was left at the Ministry of the Interior and not passed on to local authorities. Like many other major ruins in Taiwan, Tamalin remains perpetually incapable of becoming a "protected historical landmark."

From the local perspective, provincial and county officials often say that because such-and- such ruins have not been classified as a historical landmark, who can be sure of their genuine importance? It's not worth considering making room in the budget for protecting the site. And from the perspective of the central government, they claim because of the Self-Governance Law for Provinces and Counties, the local authorities must take the initiative to declare their "historical landmarks" to higher authorities. As both parties claim "no grounds for administration," the ruins are kicked back and forth like a rubber ball.

Furthermore, too many units are in charge of historical landmarks and cultural artifacts, so that no one knows whom to follow. For example, historical landmarks are administered by the Ministry of the Interior, but antique objects inside protected historical buildings are administered by the Ministry of Education. The central, provincial, county and municipal governments all have "cultural personnel" with the same general function. The resulting mish-mash of authority and responsibility means that in the end the affair falls into the pattern of no one managing at all.

A difference of ethnicity?

The local people of Puli were unwilling to see Puli High School's ruins reenact the tragedy of coming to an end at the hands of a backhoe. For this reason, before the funding for a test dig and a formal excavation had been sorted out, they asked the scholar Liu Yi-chang, who has deep emotions for Puli, to begin rescue excavation at his own expense. At the same time, they sent out feelers in search of channels through which the money that had already been spent could be reimbursed. Finally the construction unit of Puli High approved, and passed on the request to the authority above them, the Department of Education. To date the official documents are still being circulated, and as for whether the money can be reimbursed, the future has yet to be told.

From an impartial perspective, the method of "acting first and reporting later" that the archaeologists and the local cultural community took was not the most desirable, yet with the construction company constantly reminding them that they were going to begin work in short order, "if we didn't do it this way to buy time, how else could we have managed it?" asserts Liu Yi-chang.

Liu believes that the reason Taiwan's archaeologists frequently come into conflict with construction companies when rescuing ruins is that the stipulations of the Cultural Heritage Preservation Law are not logically distributed. With historical landmarks, the emphasis is on restoration; with ruins, the emphasis is on preservation. Dealing with both under the same piece of legislation is bound to cause problems.

For a long time now, we have adopted a utilitarian philosophy in which economic development has reigned supreme. "If cultural affairs come into conflict with pragmatic benefits, most people will treasure the benefits in front of their faces. Most of the time, their solution is to kick the problem aside," asserts Liu Yi-chang. In fact, at a deep cultural level, it involves personal ethnic identity and the differences between indigenous people and ethnic Chinese. "Things so distant in time that people find them hard to imagine, like these prehistoric people who were neither aborigines nor Han Chinese--it seems you can expect that most people won't pay attention to them or discuss them," he frankly states.

Us Puli folks. . . .

When forming a basic strategy, besides amending the laws, perhaps we can ponder what role such "cultural assets" as ancient ruins play in the living experience of local communities. For example, it would be possible to construct a prehistoric museum at the site of the discovery, or make artistic reproductions of some of the disinterred objects for use as local souvenirs. These kinds of methods can help rid "archaeological affairs" of their "highbrow" image.

After this process has gone on for some time, one day when the locals say, "Us Puli folks," the statement will naturally encompass those ancient people of a long lost age. Only then will there arise from within modern people's hearts the pride which will lead them to call the construction to a halt and "yield the road" to the humanity of the past.

Perhaps one day the hitching stones in Tang Tang's picture will float not only across the sky, but in everybody's heart.

（facing page） When a group of stone coffins was discovered among the mou ntainous woods of the Shihtunkeng Ruins, archaeological experts undertook a collective investigation, and attracted a crowd of onlookers. （photo by Vincent Chang）

（top） This is the stratum containing cultural relics in another set of a ncient ruins, Shuiwaku. From the area of grayish brown earth in the picture, the tools of ancien t people were extracted.

（below） As the Chuping Ruins of Jenai Rural Township were excavated, a p rehistoric settlement made up of at least 48 building foundations was discovered. Scattered inside and outside the settlement were 172 graves. （photo by Cheng Yuan-ching）

Pan Ming-chao's "treasure box" is stocked completely with utensils once used by the people of Tamalin. The newly constructed building at his side is the site of ancient ruins.

The ruins site on the grounds of the Puli Christian Hospital is the future location of a parking lot. Will the ruins be destroyed? Or like the ruins at Puli High School, is there a chance for salvation?

A thorough, formal archaeological dig requires a large amount of manpower, and a construction project even more.

This assistant is carefully managing the excavation of a sarcophagus. Archaeology is not a treasure hunt. Artifacts have significance only if they are documented on the spot as they are unearthed.

The test dig has already reached its final stage. This assistant assumes the work of coordinating photography, surveying and sketching.

"Are we actually old acquaintances?" Have this Russian sinologist and this local Puli youngster both found tools of Puli's prehistoric people?