A Museum Project: Case Study of the National Museum of Prehistory, Taiwan of the ‘The Voyage 30,000 Years Ago” Project and Oceanic Environmental Education Program

A Museum Project: Case Study of the National Museum of Prehistory, Taiwan of the ‘The Voyage 30,000 Years Ago” Project and Oceanic Environmental Education Program

The National Museum of Prehistory (NMP) in Taiwan is the only national museum in eastern Taiwan and an important anthropology museum. The NMP has been working together with the National Museum of Nature and Science in Japan during three years to develop the program “Holistic Reenactment Project of the Voyage 30,000 Years Ago”. The aim of this project was to look into the origin of the Japanese people by testing whether it is possible to travel to the Japanese archipelago from Taiwan by using a raft. The project team inferred that ancient humans were most likely to use the Kuroshio Current to travel from Taiwan to the Okinawa Islands. In recent years, a succession of human skeletons from more than 20,000 years ago have been unearthed in Okinawa. As such, based on the distribution of animals, ocean Currents, Paleolithic human remains, DNA from unearthed skeletons, and social behaviors, it has been estimated that humans have occupied the islands of Okinawa for some 30,000 years. There is a strong possibility that these prehistoric settlers found their way to Okinawa by sea from Taiwan. Two bamboo rafts were built by a Taiwanese indigenous raft-maker to test this hypothesis. The knowledge and techniques of building bamboo rafts as practiced by Taiwan’s indigenous people are listed as intangible cultural heritage. The techniques and knowledge of making rafts are disappearing. We have tried to record how the rafts were made. In this study, we can see how museums can use intangible cultural heritage not only by collecting, protecting, researching and exhibiting this material, but also interpreting and representing it. In addition the NMP will present their results from the oceanic environmental education program developed over two years.

Pi-Ling Wen

Chi-Shan Chang

The Museum of Underwater Archaeology

English

Wen, Pi-Ling, and Chi-Shan Chang. 2021. “A Museum Project: Case Study of the National Museum of Prehistory, Taiwan of the ‘The Voyage 30,000 Years Ago.” Project and Oceanic Environmental Education Program.” Edited by Brian Fahy, Hans Van Tilburg, Bill Jeffery, T. Kurt Knoerl, and Riley Smith. In Proceedings of Fourth Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage: Keelung,Taiwan, and Virtual, November 1-5, 2021. The Museum of Underwater Archaeology URL: https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/exhibits/show/apconf-muchproceedings/item/690

Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage