ABSTRACT
The TPK culture, also known as the Corded Ware culture, is the earliest Neolithic cultural stratum ever found in Taiwan. As early as the 1940s, Kano Tadao suggested that the earliest cultural stratum on the island of Taiwan was characterised by cord-marked pottery. The clarification of its characteristics and its formal establishment as an archaeological culture, however, was not achieved until the excavations of the sites of TPK in Taipei and Fengpitou in Kaohsiung by Kwangchih Chang in 1964-65. The new culture was named TPK by Chang, after the site he had studied in most detail. On the basis of discoveries made at TPK and Fengpitou and other relevant data, Chang (1969) suggested the following as the specific characteristics of this culture:
1 The TPK is characterised by pottery made of coarse paste and decorated with cord-marked impressions. The stone inventory includes pecked river pebbles, net sinkers, stone adzes, points and bark beaters.
