HK barbecue's 7,000-year history

ALMOST 7,000 years ago a group of prehistoric fishermen huddled around a small fire on a windswept hilltop on Kau Sai Chau, cooking dinner and trying to keep warm.

Yesterday the Hong Kong Archaeological Society announced that pieces of charcoal from the territory's first family barbecue show that human habitation in Hong Kong dates beyond the Stone Age.

This discovery pushes back the known date of the occupation of the Hong Kong area by 1,000 years and has redefined how Hong Kong was first settled.

'It was not until we got the carbon dating on the charcoal from the site that we realised how important it was,' society chairman William Meacham said.

'It was a fluke that we found this piece of charcoal, but we are 99 per cent certain that this is older than the known Neolithic [4100 BC to 3600 BC, Stone Age] cultures of the area.' Local archaeologists have known about the Kau Sai Chau site since 1960 when it was discovered by an amateur researcher.

The exact location of the dig was lost because of poor mapping.

It was not until last year, when the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club began to develop the north half of the island into two 18-hole golf courses, that the society was able to pinpoint the site.