Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica

Abstract

This paper is the first paper of the author concerning the re-organization and studies of the background materials for Taiwan zooarchaeology. It details and discusses the mammalian faunas and other large vertebrate animals existing in Taiwan in different periods of time. According to the nature of the materials analyzed, the paper can be divided into three parts and a synthetic discussion.
Part I: The Pleistocene Faunas
(I). The Chochen (or Zuo-zhen) Fauna
In this part, the author discusses the species of Pleistocene mammals in Taiwan. Source materials for this discussion are mainly from the quantities of palaeotological reports published since the time of Japanese Occupation. In this part, he first divides the Taiwan Pleistocene mammals into two groups: The early group is called ‘the Chochen (or Zuo-zhen, 左鎮) Fauna”, named by Shikama et al. in 1975 after a batch of animal fossils discovered on the riverbeds of the Cai-Liao Stream (菜寮溪) in the Zuo-zhen area of Tainan County. Taking mammalian fossils unearthed in situ from the Zuo-zhen area as a basis for correlation, and combining the information concerning the stratigraphical range of various known fossils of the East Asian and South Asian regions, the author analyzed and compared the mammalian fossils from the Zuo-zhen area and 29 other localities in Taiwan. He argues that the mammalian remains at these localities basically can be categorized as Chochen Mammalian Fauna in the broad sense.
According to these analyses, the author argues that the broad sense Chochen Mammalian Fauna and other contemporary vertebrate animals include: stegodonts: Stegodon sinensis, S. cf. orientalis, S. insignis, S. (Parastegodon) akashiensis, S. (P.) aurorae; elephants: Mammuthus armeniacus taiwanicus, Elephas hysudricus paramammonteus, Archidiskodon paramammonteus; rhinos: Rhinoceros sinensis hayasakai; tapirs: Megatapirus cf. angustus or Megatapirus sp.; hippos: Hippopotamus sp. (?); bovids: Bubalus sp., Bibos geron, Bison sp.; cervids: Elaphurus formosanus, Cervus (Sika) sintikuensis, C. (S.) nippon taiouanus, C. (S.) sp., C. (Rusa) sp., Cervus sp., C. (Depéretia) kazusensis, Metacervulus astylodon, Muntiacus cf. bohlini, Muntiacus sp., Eucladoceros sp., Capreolus sp.; suids: Sus houi, Sus cf. australis, Sus sp., Sus cf. lydekkeri, Potamochoerus sp.; macaques: Macaca sp.; felines: Panthera cf. tigris or Panthera sp., and probably Felis (Machairodus?) sp.; dolphins: Delphinidae gen. et sp. indet.; whales: Pseudorca yunliensis and Cetacea. 
A comparison of the Chochen Fauna and a few representative faunas of southern Chinese mainland, including those of early Early Pleistocene Yuan-mou (元謀), middle Early Pleistocene Liu-Cheng (柳城), early Middle Pleistocene Guan-yin Dong (觀音洞) and mid Middle Pleistocene Yan-Jing-Gou (鹽井溝), indicates that the geological age of the Chochen Fauna was mid Early Pleistocene and its upper limit could be as late as early Middle Pleistocene.
(II). ‘The Taiwan Landbridge Fauna’
Fossil remains of later Pleistocene fauna came mainly from the P’eng Hu (or Pong-hu 澎湖) waters in the eastern part of the Taiwan Strait, the Taiwan shoals around the Dong-shan Island (東山島) in the western part of the Taiwan Strait, the Tainan area and the Hsi-yu Island (or Xi-yu-dao, 西嶼島) of the P’eng Hu County. This region is between 23 and 24 degrees north latitudes. It belongs to the continental shelf and the topography of the sea floor of this region is quite level. Its ecological conditions in ancient time should be rather uniform. When this region became land during the Late Pleistocene, aside from the slight variations in vegetation because of regional differences in elevation and the coverage of ancient rivers, the distribution of animals also should be rather uniform. And a single fauna zone was born. Therefore, the author tentatively calls this fauna ‘the Taiwan Landbridge Fauna’.
The ‘Taiwan Landbridge Fauna’ and other contemporary vertebrate animals include: Elephants: Palaeoloxodon namadicus, P. naumanni penghunensis, Mammuthus primigenius, Elephas maximus, and/or Elephas sp.; rhinos: Dicerorhinus sp. and/or Rhinocerotidae gen. et sp. indet.; bovids: Bubalus teilhardi, Bubalus youngi, Bubalus sp., Bison sp., and Bos primigenius; shrews: Capricornis sumatraensis; cervids: Cervus (Sika) cf. palaeozoensis, C. (S.) nippon taiouanus, C. unicolor swinhoei and/or C. (Rusa) timoriensis (?), Cervus sp., C. cf. praenipponicus, Elaphurus davidianus, Muntiacus reevesi micrurus; boars: Sus cf. lydekkeri and Sus scrofa; horses: Equus przewalskii sinensis and Equus dalianensis; tigers: panthera tigris; raccoon dogs: Nyctereutes procyonoides; bears: Ursus arctos and/or Ursus sp.; hyaenas: Crocuta ultima; wolves: Canis lupus (?); whales: Globicepphala macrorhynchus, Balaenoptera sp., Cetacea gen. et sp. indet.; and dolphins.
Since the animal remains of the ‘Taiwan Landbridge Fauna’ were mostly salvaged from the bottom of the sea, information concerning their strata is lacking and their age is hard to determine. Based on the stratigraphic range of fossil mammals identified, the author disscusses one by one the possibility that a certain animal belongs to the “Taiwan Landbridge Fauna” or not. Then, he adopts the “concurrent-range zone” method, taking all the animals that existing time-limit are known into consideration, to determine the geological age of this fauna. He concludes that the age of the ‘Taiwan Landbridge Fauna’ was probably from late Middle Pleistocene to the end of Pleistocene. According to this method, he further suggests that there might have been subgroups of this fauna. The age of the first subgroup was probably late Middle Pleistocene or as late as early Late Pleistocene. The age of the second subgroup was probably late Late Pleistocene or even as late as the beginning of Holocene. 
Part II: ‘The Archaeological Fauna’
Taiwan palaeontological source materials become extremely scant for the period after the end of Pleistocene. During this period, definite archaeological cultural remains began to emerge in quantities in Taiwan. In order to study the mammalian species existing in Taiwan during the period from Holocene to the ‘historical documentary period’, scholars can only count on the ‘subfossil’ materials unearthed from archaeological sites. Due to the characteristics of the source materials, the author tentatively calls the mammalian fauna existing in Taiwan during this period ‘the Archaeological Fauna’.
The author has analyzed all the available Taiwan archaeological writings. Also based on his understanding of the current Taiwan archaeological studies, he divides the mammalian fauna source materials of this period into six sections for descriptive purposes. These are: ‘Pre-pottery period’ (2/30,000←5,000 ±BP), early Neolithic period (6,500—4,500BP), middle Neolithic period (4,700—3,500BP), late Neolithic period (3,500—2,000BP), ‘Metal Age’ (2,000—400BP), and ‘the Historic period’ (1,100←400-0BP).
According to archaeological evidences, the mammalian fauna of the ‘pre-pottery period’ include wild boar and deer. The early Neolithic period fauna include cattle (?), deer, and some sea mammals. The middle Neolithic period had rusa and sika deer, muntjac, pig, dugong, and dog. The late Neolithic period had rusa and sika deer, muntjac, pig, money cat, small Chinese civet, Formosan masked civet, hare, squirrel, rat, whale, dugong, dog, and probably goat as well as macaque. In the ‘Metal Age’, there were rusa and sika deer, muntjac, wild boar, feline, small Chinese civet, macaque, hare, squirrel, rat, goat (?), and domesticated dog and pig. ‘Historical period’ archaeology in Taiwan was even less studied and mammals existing in this period include deer, muntjac, pig, goat, carnivore and hare. But during this period, cattle bones first appeared in the archaeological sites.
Part III: The ‘Documentary Fauna’
In this paper, the period from the beginning of the last years of the sixteenth century till the development of modern zoology in Taiwan is called ‘the documentary period’. During this period, archaeological source materials are very scant. But source materials concerning Taiwan faunas in local official accounts and private writings abound. Their description about Taiwan native mammalian species already covers most of the familiar species of today. The author has checked one by one the exact species of all the mammals recorded in Taiwan documents and summarily described their characteristics, habits as well as the habitat they prefer. Also, a complete account of the records concerning their existence in the Pleistocene Taiwan and related archaeological source materials unearthed is given. Thus, the evolution of each species during the various periods is established. 
According to these researches and analyses, the mammals existing during this period include Formosan sika deer, Formosan rusa deer, Formosan reeves muntjac, eldi deer, Formosan wild boar, Formosan serow, Formosan black bear, Formosan clouded leopard, leopard cat, small Chinese civet, masked civet, Chinese otter, Formosan ferret-badger, mouse, Bandicota indica, squirrel, Mogera insularis, bamboo rat, Formosan hare, Chinese pangolin as well as sea mammals like dugong and Cetacea.

Besides, the author has discussed in detail the cervids that once proliferated in quantities in Taiwan. He first discusses the disappearing process of the cervids in Taiwan and then identifies the various cervids whose names appear in the earlier documents, such as lu (鹿), mi (麋), jiang (蔣), ‘mountain horse or San-ma’ (山馬), ji (麂), and zhang (獐). He suggests that the ‘documentary lu’ referred to the Formosan sika deer and probably included also the long extinct eldi deer. The ‘documentary mi’ referred to the present Formosan sambar (rusa) deer. The ‘documentary mountain horse’ or jammama probably referred to the female Formosan sambar deer. ‘Jiang skin’ referred to the skin of Formosan sambar deer. The ‘documentary ji’ and ‘documentary zhang’ referred to the male and female Formosan reeves muntjac respectively. The latter might also refer to some kind of small cervids which have already disappeared. The now extinct eldi deer was also described.
The author further discusses and proves that during the Holocene, bovids survived in the Taiwan region till 5000BP and then disappeared. They did not continue to survive and proliferate into the “wild cattle or Yie-niu (野牛)” often mentioned in the historical documents. Based on archaeological source materials, the author further suggests that the past distribution of the sea mammal dugong covered the area of P’eng Hu and the Green Island (Lü-dao, 綠島). He also pointed out that according to the documents, bamboo rat probably existed in Taiwan, but was not recorded in modern zoological records because of incomplete investigations.
Part IV: Synthetic Discussion and Conclusion
In the last part, the author synthetically discusses the studies of mammalian faunas of the various periods of time that appear in this paper. The first issue concerns representation. It can be seen from the species of the faunas reconstructed by the author that small animals are apparently lacking among the Pleistocene faunas, and species of faunas are seriously inadequate among the ‘Archaeological Fauna’. So far as Pleistocene faunas are concerned, in the past palaeontological studies in Taiwan were mainly based on the fracture fossil remains obtained from collecting and fishing. This type of specimens were greatly affected by the screening process. Besides, compared to the large animals, the skeletons of small animals are hard to preserve in the first place. Therefore, the author believes that the lack of small animals among the reconstructed Pleistocene faunas is due to differential preservation and screening.
It is generally thought that since the time of Holocene, animal species have gone little change and should be similar to those that we see today. The author believes that the inadequacy of archaeological fauna species is due to a number of factors. The soil of Taiwan is mostly acid and corrosive, unsuitable for the preservation of organic matters. Ancient people exploited animal resources selectively is another factor. However, the main reason is: Zooarchaeological studies have not yet been fully developed and many unearthed animal skeletons have not yet been identified. With the gradual development of zooarchaeological studies in Taiwan, more satisfactory reconstruction of species can be expected. 
Secondly, palaeontological and archaeological records concerning Taiwan animals provide only doubtful species identification. Scientific names for most Pleistocene mammal are provided. Yet because of the difficiency of specimens for comparative studies and because of inadequate knowledge or over-reliance on certain palaeontological source materials of the peripheral regions, results of identification are often less than perfect. Because of the Japanese education background of the palaeontologists in the Japanese Occupation period, and because during that period scholars were familiar with only a few faunal assemblages in China and South Asia, these researches obviously adopted Okinawan and Japanese animals as their main specimens for comparisons in their Taiwan palaeontological studies. As a result, not a few Japanese and Okinawan species appeared in the Quarternary faunas of Taiwan. On the other hand, zooarchaeological studies in Taiwan are in their initial stages. In the past, archaeological reports described unearthed animal skeletons only in a sweeping and vague way. And a few species reports also need further examination. 
Finally, the author discusses the contributions of Taiwan zooarchaeological studies and ‘Documentary Fauna’ analyses on the zoohistorical and zoological studies of Taiwan. The author argues that the time span of the animal bones obtained in archaeological work was from 7,000BP to the ‘historical period’ and this is a very longterm animal ‘bone warehouse’. In this approximately 7,000 years, they not only provide direct evidence for the animal species existing in this period, but are also important and only source materials for the studies of the evolution, extinction, and temporal and spatial distribution of native Taiwan animals. And some well preserved specimens can provide source materials for the molecular biological studies on the evolution of native Taiwan animals. 
The time span of early Taiwan historic documents is about four hundred years. These documents are the only source materials concerning the mammalian faunas in historical period, aside from the unearthed remains and the ‘bone warehouse’ of the aboriginals’ trophy. The reorganization of these source materials, besides enabling us to understand the degree of zoological knowledge of the ancients during a certain period of time and their progress for knowing certain specific animals, can also enable us to understand the changes of animal habitats and distribution as well as their declining and extinction process. It can also enable us to discover species that have already become extinct or have so far not yet been discovered by investigations. And documentary researches can also reveal the early conditions of the sea mammals that run aground or are caught as well as the declining process of the cervids in Taiwan.

Keywords

zooarchaeology, Chochen Fauna, “Taiwan Landbridge Fauna”, “Archaeological Fauna”, “Documentary Fauna”, palaeontology, Pleistocene