The Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) said it is re-evaluating the time needed to finish the Suhua Highway Improvement Project after discovering more Hanben Culture (漢本遺址) archeological sites during excavation work earlier this year, adding it would finalize the completion date by the end of next month after conferring with the excavation team.
The improved Suhua Highway was scheduled to be opened at the beginning of 2018 after the construction team first found the archeological site in 2012, which is dated from 1,200 to 1,600 years ago.
Further excavations in the highway section between Nanao (南澳) and Heping (和平) townships in Yilan County revealed a second archeological site in March this year, which is dated from 1,650 to 1,800 years ago.
Research fellow at the Institute of History and Philology Liu Yi-chang (劉益昌) said the second layer was 8m deep, which is about two times deeper than that of the first site.
Apart from pottery, stoneware and boneware, Liu said that archeologists also found stone and bone ornaments in the forms of animals and humans.
They also found large and small stone tablets for religious ceremonies, he said.
He said the layer was about 300m long and 100m wide, adding that such rich and complete preservation is rarely seen.
According to Liu, the discovery of the second layer was a major archeological breakthrough and is the key to understanding the formation of the Shihsanhang culture (十三行文化).
He said the excavation could help identify the source of the Taiwanese culture.
The Suhua Highway improvement project is to be put on hold until the excavation is complete, he added.
The further postponement of the project has upset residents of the east coast, with some questioning when the construction would be completed if it has be to halted whenever an archeological discovery is made.
Suao Township (蘇澳) Mayor Chen Ching-ling (陳金麟) said the construction is halted whenever there is an issue related to environmental protection and preservation of cultural assets.
“There is severe traffic congestion in Suao whenever there is a holiday. People have been expecting a safer and better highway for years. Preserving cultural assets should not be an excuse to postpone the finish date of construction,” Chen said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching