From Takow to Kaohsiung

Dabenkeng (大坌坑) Site, Bali District, New Taipei City

Dabenkeng (大坌坑; also romanized as "Tapenkeng (TPK)", lit. "Large Dust(y) Gorge") in Bali District near the southern bank of the River Danshui estuary was the site of the archaeological excavation in 1958 of a early Neolithic culture dating from c.5600 BP (c.3600 BCE) onwards. It thus gave its name to this culture, sites of which have been found widely along the coasts of Taiwan proper and the Penghu archipelago.

Some similarities in artifacts found at these sites with those in Kinmen and elsewhere along the southeast coast of China have led to a suggestion that these were the ancestral homelands from which the people of Dabenkeng Culture left the mainland, perhaps due to the movement of Han-Chinese or other peoples expanding their territories southwards or perhaps because of climatic or population pressures local to the continental coastal regions.

Around 2200 BC, Dabenkeng Culture developed into locally differentiated cultures throughout Taiwan, including, possibly, ancestors of one or more of today's Aborigines, as well as perhaps other memebers of the Austronesian language group overseas. Indeed, some scholars maintain these were the first farming people to arrive in Taiwan and, after spreading along the island's coastline, migrated throughout the Pacific and Indian oceans.



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