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9 Author Biographies WALTER SCHOFIELD Walter Schofield (1888–1968) was a cadet officer in the Hong Kong civil service from 1911 to 1938. After serving in various posts, including that of district officer, South, he was first police magistrate in 1931–33, and again in 1934–37, it being customary for such posts to be filled by cadets up to 1941. He was a keen amateur archaeologist who conducted digs at Shek Pik on Lantao Island in 1937 where he found six burials under a cultural layer which yielded bronze artifacts. A gulley adjacent to the site contained the remains of six sandstone moulds for casting socketed axes. He was active in identifying and mapping prehistoric sites and as an expert in geology he suggested that the change in distribution of bronze age against earlier sites reflected an increase in population and adoption of rice agriculture. He was particularly interested in the sequence of sites in raised beaches noting the stratigraphical distinction between so-called soft geometric pottery with stone artifacts and the later hard fired pottery with bronze remains. Investigation of the Lung Kwu Chau (Tung Kwu Island, north of Tai O) Archaeological Site was conducted by him from 1925 and others later focused on the low southern isthmus. They found archaeological remains including coarse corded pottery, polished adzes, polishing stones, soft and hard geometric pottery, plain and incised chalky pottery, and human burials. The deposits on the site belong to several major cultural periods of Hong Kong history, including geometric pottery of the Bronze Age, celadon of the Tang and Song dynasties, and blue-and-white porcelain wares of the Qing dynasty, and glazed Han/Six dynasties pottery (JRASHKB, volume 9). Schofield was also interested in the later history of the area, and in particular contributed to our knowledge of the Kowloon Peninsula, 326 Southern DiStrict officer reportS especially in the area of the Sung Wong Toi and the Kowloon Walled City. He copied historical inscriptions and noted other finds, as recorded in his notebooks. These were left to James Hayes, and were passed to the Hong Kong Museum of History some years after his death. They may now be held by the Antiquities and Monuments Office. Schofield and Hayes had frequent correspondence, and Schofield’s letters are deposited in the Hong Kong Public Records Office. All Schofield’s work was done pre-war, during his government service. He retired to England in 1938. The following obituary was printed in the 1969 Journal of the Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. With deep regret we record the death of Mr Walter Schofield, one of the pioneer figures of Hong Kong archaeology. He died on 8th December 1968 at his home in England at the age of 80. His opportunities in this field stemmed from 27 years’ service in the Hong Kong government (1911 to 1938) during which, as a Cadet Officer, he held important posts in the administration and the Judiciary. For the last ten years of his service he was, along with Professor Shellshear, Dr Heanly and Father Finn, one of the active band of capable enthusiasts who ranged far and wide in the Colony charting well over a hundred hitherto unknown sites of neolithic man and establishing a corpus of written work for their successors to build upon. Walter Schofield’s work in the field and at his desk was of the highest order and is typified by the careful account of the excavations at Shek Pik which he conducted with Professor J G Anderson in 1938 (see W Schofield, ‘The Proto-Historic Site of the Hong Kong Culture at Shek Pik, Lantau, Hong Kong’, Proceedings of the Third Congress of Prehistorians of the Far East, Singapore 1940). Mr James Hayes, who knew him well and corresponded frequently with him in the last ten years of his life, writes: “Walter had a lifelong interest in Hong Kong ethnography and archaeology which was as keen at the time of his death as at any time in his life. When he died he had just finished writing up from his notes an article on his pre-war excavations at Tung Kwu, which displays anew his passion for accuracy and keen powers of observation. He applied to Hong Kong archaeology a profound knowledge of geology, which he also practiced widely in the Colony and indeed, as his notebooks testify, anywhere he had the chance, and this added to his stature and reputation as an archaeologist. He was also a...

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