To allow construction of road network leading to Sai Kung Town, a large scale rescue excavation funded by the Civil Engineering Department was launched from October 2001 to September 2002. To meet the extremely tight schedule and enormous scale of the project, experts from four Mainland Provincial institutes, namely Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics, Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Shaanxi Archaeology Institute, and Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Guangzhou were invited to form a joint archaeological team to take charge of the rescue excavation.

With an excavation area of over 3,000m², the Sha Ha excavation was one of the largest archaeological excavation works ever conducted in Hong Kong. The various cultural phases were deposited with well-stratified sequences. Rich archaeological features and finds dated to the Late Neolithic period (c.5,000 b.c.) and the Bronze Age (c.3,000 b.p.) were yielded, in addition to cultural deposits of the Han and Ming dynasties. Archaeological features recovered included groups of posthole, stone tools workshop and burials, all give important hints on the ancient settlement pattern and social organization of the area. A large number of sophisticated stone tools, as well as raw materials and semi rough-out were also unearthed. All the pottery assemblages were in well-stratified sequences and could be the most invaluable materials in constructing the prehistoric cultural chronology of the area.

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