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Subject:The Mistery of "Hongshan" Jade Objects
Posted By: B Yu Tue, Oct 16, 2007 IP: 66.21.218.13

Currently there is a fad about "Hongshan" jade objects. It seems that they are available every where even at street corners in China. Most would say that they are mostly "fakes". It is impossible to have so many authentic articles that were made 4000-6000 years ago.
For collector like me who have bought many "fake" objects, something puzzling appeared. Those so call Hongshan items appear to vary in age and quality. Some definitely look like made yesterday.
Some look thousands of years old and some look like hundreds of years old.
Since the Hongshan culture was gone 4000 years ago, who made those "Hongshan" items since then?
I believe "Hongshan" type of artifacts have been continuously produced for a long time.
The Hongshan area covers the current southern Siberia, Mongolia, Liaoning, north-east China, traditionally non-Han area. People living in that area have not followed the advance in technology and craftsmanship improvement as the Han people.
Many of them are still nomads.
It is highly probable that they retain the style of jade carving as passed down from their ancestors. If that is true, then one would find Hongshan style objects covering many thousands of years. This would explain the age variety and carving diversity of Hongshan jade objects seen today.

Subject:Re: The MYTH of "Hongshan style" Jade Objects
Posted By: Gman Wed, Oct 17, 2007

The myth of Hongshan jade objects



Subject:Re: The Mistery of "Hongshan" Jade Objects
Posted By: Jim Wed, Oct 17, 2007

BYU Bill,

While you present, what you may want people to think, is a scientific educated approach to where these thousands of Hongshan objects come from. It is only a "Wild A__" guess of yours, since there is no recognized proof of this. When this can be substantiated by a recognized reputable source, then you may say �I told you so�. Until then this is just another shell game infomercial to confuse the unknowing to purchase from your sellers.

You mentioned in an email that growing up �no one in your family owned a piece of jade� because it was rare and valuable. In the 50�s � 80�s it still was valuable, (Mainly because the Japanese pillaged all the gold- NOTE: My opinion only and not meant to offend!)

I will however offer that IMHO, the artistic craftsmen of �old�, took extreme care to produce artistically accurate form or shape with measured stylistic carvings. Which eliminates most of the supposed Hongshan jade carvings that are being sold on Ebay and even some that are represented in publications. Attempted reproductions of old pieces are flawed if you care to really look at them, like Pierre�s jug, your turtle pendent and others. They all lack the concern or interest that the true artist craftsmen of old had.

I don�t think I�ll bother anymore with your �shell game jade infomercials�. BUT�.. I will stay around to quickly reference existing posting for the unwary traveler.


Walk Softly Grasshopper!

Subject:Re: The Mistery of "Hongshan" Jade Objects
Posted By: B Yu Thu, Oct 18, 2007

Jim seems to be so bad mannered and uneducated that I will not even commend to his messages. One does not cast pearls before swine. I would like to inform others who read these messages, however, that I am not Bill. As far as I know, Bill has two degrees from USA. I have a little more than that.

Subject:Re: The Mistery of "Hongshan" Jade Objects
Posted By: Edward Shumaker Thu, Oct 18, 2007

B YU,

Before you accuse anyone of being uneducated, perhaps you will need to correct your spelling.

So lets review the title of your thread shall we..., "The Mistery of "Hongshan" Jade Objects

Should the second word spell... Mystery ?

Anyhow, what is up with Mircea Veleanu, yourself and others of your fine group, that they feel they need to quote from the good book, do you think this would add credibility to any of your claims?

Do you think the forum had taken note, that you had responded to the bad mannered Jim, instead of taking up a decent inteligent conversation with me?

What does this say of your higher education?

Regards, Edward Shumaker

Subject:Re: The Mistery of "Hongshan" Jade Objects
Posted By: Edward Shumaker Wed, Oct 17, 2007

Dear B Yu,

The art of scientific investigation goes well beyond any testing procedures utilizing both math and testing equipment in determining both age and material.

A good understanding of history, archeology, and anthropology, is also required. It is my understanding that the Hongshan culture was so named after Hongshanhou, just outside the city of Chifeng in the river valley, to wit, the Japanese anthropologist Torii Ryuzo discovered the site, but was not scientifically investigated by further archaeological digs until 1935.

It is a matter of deduction, to determine that this ancient culture is yet unknown, due the simple fact that there is a lack of historical evidence to support who they were or by what name they so called themselves. This has largely to do with no written language, which constitutes the lack of any historical data.


An anthropologist has a difficult undertaking, for they are often forced to reconstruct a Culture with little or no data at all, moreover, the anthropologist must work closely with the archaeologist to determine the approximate age of the site by the careful analysis and re-dispositioning of the soil, and the varying levels of continued occupation.

It further requires the anthropologist to have a complete understanding of other well known Cultures, in order to reconstruct a partial similarity of the daily functions and religious belief systems so practice by said Culture.

Your scientific approach by means of weathering or burial anomalies, may for the most part prove inconclusive, and yet gender more speculation or guesswork. A true jade specialist will tell you that age can not be determined by carving style alone, nor will the presence of weathering necessarily indicate actual age, to wit, it has largely to do with environmental conditions, which by itself, presents problems of proper age attribution.

In light of the many ancient illustrative records
as kept by the ancient Chinese, I find it rather intriguing that there is no pictorial references in regards to the present artifacts of this discussion. I do however find that there were jade artifacts being produced that represented the Liangzhu Culture in the Ming and early Qing dynasties, but no Hongshan Culture artifacts to speak of.

I am sure that a man of your education, can readily ascertain the problematic evaluations that your thesis may present, yet I caution you to be very careful in presenting your case in the light of scientific dissertations, that is, in the present light of these facts so outlined for your careful analysis.

Regards, Edward Shumaker

Subject:Re: The Mistery of "Hongshan" Jade Objects
Posted By: Bill Thu, Oct 18, 2007

When I first read the message posted by BYu regarding Hongshan jade items especially his theory that "I believe "Hongshan" type of artifacts have been continuously produced for a long time" I thought it was quite far fetching and almost started laughing myself.

However, the more I thought about it the more sense it makes, especially in explaining the availability of Hongshan jade items that are simply not good enough to be "authentic" Hongshan jade items and yet do not look like they were modernly made.

I have been thinking about this the past few days and I have almost come up with similar observations as Mr. Edward. Let us look at the definition of Hongshan culture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongshan_culture

The Hongshan culture (Simplified Chinese: 红山文化; Traditional Chinese: 紅山文化; pinyin: h�ngshān w�nhu�) was a Neolithic culture in northeastern China. Hongshan sites have been found in an area stretching from Inner Mongolia to Liaoning and Hebei, and dated from about 4700 BC to 2900 BC [1]. The culture is named after Hongshanhou (Simplified Chinese: 红山後; Traditional Chinese: 紅山後; pinyin: h�ngshānh�u), a site in Hongshan District, Hongshan District, Chifeng. The Hongshanhou site was discovered by the Japanese imperialist archaeologist Torii Ryuzo in 1908 and extensively excavated in 1935 by Hamada Kosaku and Mizuno Seiichi.

According to this source, the Hongshan culture is supposed to occur as earlier as 4700 BC and ended at 2900 BC. The problem is nobody can explain satisfactorily what exactly happened to this culture at 2900 BC. Did the whole culture and all its people just vanish from the earth like some of these ancient cultures in Mexico and other parts of the world? Are there any descendants left and are still alive from the Hongshan culture today? Many Chinese scholars had divided the Hongshan cultures into Early, Middle and Late Hongshan periods but nobody seems to discuss what exactly happed to the whole culture or its people. In order to answer my own questions, I will have to do some more diligent studies on Hongshan cultures from the very beginning to its end.

The second problem with Hongshan culture is that it is basically a very newly �discovered� culture although it was indeed discovered in 1935 by two Japanese. However, due to the war between Japan and China in 1939 and the beginning of WWII and the fact that the discoverers of this culture were Japanese, this discovery was totally ignored or put aside. The thing is although I had studied the history of China from the Three Emperors and Five Kings all the way to the Qing dynasty in schools for thirteen years, I had never heard of the Hongshan culture in my whole life until recently when I started collecting Hongshan jades. This makes me wonder why that is the case.

I agree with the following statement made by Mr. Edward in his reply to Byu and I had come up similar conclusion, �This has largely to do with no written language, which constitutes the lack of any historical data.�

It is interesting that many ancient cultures never have developed a �written language� although they do have a �spoken one�. Case in point, Vietnam never have a written language until the French occupy their country and latinized the Vietnamese language. I believe Vietnamese is originally a Chinese dialect and like many Chinese dialects such as Cantonese, many times their words have sound but there are no written words for them. That is the reason many Cantonese in Hong Kong flunked Chinese because they did not write what they speak. The same phenomenon may apply to both Japanese and Korean languages. Both languages were invented by copying Chinese characters and other languages, improved on them and made the written languages their own. Therefore, as a nomadic people, the Hongshan race might never have the opportunity or necessity in developing a written language. Without any written languages, none of their histories could be captured. Interesting, in many cultures, while a written language may be lacking, but they have bards or �tale tellers�, �story tellers� who were selected and trained in memorizing histories, legends of their cultures and they traveled around in their countries to spread such tales to their people. I do not know if the Hongshan culture had such professional history keepers.

I believe it is because of such lack of written language that such old culture like Hongshan was not readily recognized by the modern Chinese. I had asked many of my Chinese friends (from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong) if they knew what Hongshan culture was, all except one could not tell me what it exactly was.

Another problem is while many Chinese would like to claim credit for Hongshan culture for being a Chinese culture and the Hongshan guru, Professor Guo Dai-shun was the first one who brought up this theory that the Chinese culture did originate from the Hongshan culture. Yet such theory was equally disagreed and opposed by many western scholars. I really do not believe Hongshan culture is the �main stream� culture in China and do not believe the current Han culture in China is necessarily a continuation of the Hongshan culture. If this is indeed the case, the Chinese would have know about Hongshan culture long time ago. It is possible Hongshan culture may occur in or around the border of China during different dynasties and the Han culture might indeed be influenced by it, but without any written records as indicated by Edward, and only based on relic excavation records at Hongshan sites discovered in or near China, one simply cannot conclude what exactly Hongshan culture is.

From what I have read so far, many Mongolian descendents believe they are the true �descendents� and �heirs� of the Hongshan culture, not the Han people. They are very proud of their heritage and their ancient culture. In one of the articles written by a Hongshan jade expert who had been traveled to the Inner Mongolia and Mongolia area that belong to ancient Hongshan 20 to 30 years ago, he said he noticed many older Mongolian have small stone carvings tied to their clothes or walking sticks. At first, he had no idea what they were but later after he purchased a few and studied them, he found out they were indeed very ancient jade carvings (some are not jades). This discovery indicates that it is very possible the carving of Hongshan culture jade or jade-like items had been continued for a very long time at the end of the Hongshan period. However, just like what happen to a lot of Chinese collectibles (such as cloisonn�), the initial advanced skills in producing such breath-taking Hongshan jade carvings in the Neolithic ages were soon lost (due to lack of written language, lack of time or willingness for the descendants to learn such skills, or the reward of having such skills is simply not attractive enough to attract new apprentices). After a while, even many later Hongshan pieces were getting worse in both the quality of their carvings and their materials. (*Of course, saying that does not mean I do not believe that there are a lot of modern Hongshan fakes out there. However, think about this? Why would anybody in any older dynasties would want to replicate Hongshan jades? Many of the Hongshan jade materials are simply not attractive enough and even they could fake them, who would buy them? Same holds true with anything found during the 50s and 60s, only a few people knew about Hongshan cultures, who would buy any Hongshan fakes then? Therefore most Hongshan pieces bought during those time had a higher possibility of being real.)

�The art of scientific investigation goes well beyond any testing procedures utilizing both math and testing equipment in determining both age and material.�

I agree mostly with the above statement made by Edward. Although many experts had tried, there are simply no scientific methods or equipments which can be used to authenticate a Hongshan piece or the accurate age of its carving (not material). Any similar tests that may be used to identify the age of other Chinese antiques such as ceramic simply would not work on jades. A jade piece can be old (material) but its carving can be new. However, the materials used to carve many archaic jades in different cultures and in different dynasties are simply impossible or too costly to obtain. Many experts had indeed performed scientific tests in comparing the physical and chemical properties of known archaic jades (excavated and record from known sites) with those in questions and conclude whether the unknown jades could be indeed carved during the same time, from the same culture and materials obtained from the same sources. It is because of this reason, I have studied the materials used to carve Hongshan and other jade carvings very diligently. I have discovered that most of the �authentic� look Hongshan jades that are still available in private hands (not in museums) are made of a very high and unique color Celadon nephrite material (usually with a hardness of 6.5 and a S.G. of 3.10 or higher) that resembles the quality of Hetian jades found in XinJiang. Such jade material is not easy to find. Some high-priced Hongshan copies were known to be made with white Hetian nephrite jades. However, I have never seen a single authentic Hongshan piece made of this material listed in any Hongshan books although Diasai did say he had seen some and did promise he would send me pictures of them. (May be he would post them here in this forum). From my researches, many Hongshan jade experts in China had already discussed the most correct materials being used in the carving of authentic Hongshan jades. However, they could not come up with a consensus answer.

�A good understanding of history, archeology, and anthropology, is also required. It is my understanding that the Hongshan culture was so named after Hongshanhou, just outside the city of Chifeng in the river valley, to wit, the Japanese anthropologist Torii Ryuzo discovered the site, but was not scientifically investigated by further archaeological digs until 1935.�

Once again, I agree with this statement. Until a few years ago, there are only two Hongshan books published by the collectors in Taiwan. Many of their conclusions are not first-hand and were simply �personal theories.� Worse yet, some rich Taiwan businessmen-collectors believe they could reap a big profit in buying up all the �genuine� Hongshan jades in China. They went to China and bought tens of thousands of �authentic� Hongshan jades for a vast sum. Unfortunately, not too many of those piece they bought were authentic (judged by experts in China who had examined them.) It is not until these last ten years, when more Hongshan books were finally published by Hongshan jade experts (some are collectors and a few are archaeologists/collectors). However, in many of them, only pictures of pieces from the author�s personal collection were being published, and without too many articles that were published in the discussion of the methods in authenticating Hongshan jades. The few books that were written by official Hongshan experts who had participated in real excavations usually describe only real pieces that were excavated from actual sites with only line drawings or very few color photos. No in-depth discussions can be found in how to identify an authentic piece. It is very possible that a few of these experts do have the expertise in authenticating Hongshan jades or they are reluctant to share their findings with the public due to fear of such knowledge will be used by forgers to make better fakes.

�An anthropologist has a difficult undertaking, for they are often forced to reconstruct a Culture with little or no data at all, moreover, the anthropologist must work closely with the archaeologist to determine the approximate age of the site by the careful analysis and re-dispositioning of the soil, and the varying levels of continued occupation.�

Once again, these statements are almost on the money. An anthropologist can only accurately estimate the buried jade pieces by studying the ages of other pieces such as potteries ages of which can be easily determined by scientific testing. Therefore, many times, even an excavated jade piece, once separated from the other burial items, without meticulous documentations, such piece may even be considered as �fakes� by the same experts. It is interesting that Larry pointed out here in this forum recently, if a jade piece is not accompanied with its original custom made wooden base, then it will not fetch as high as it would be as with a stand in any auctions. This simply reflects the difficultly in dating any archaic pieces correctly without any other provenances. Even many experts will lack such know how or will be successful in convincing other collectors/bidders. Therefore, it almost seem like a jade collector is not only collecting an archaic piece but also an archaic wood stand.

�Your scientific approach by means of weathering or burial anomalies, may for the most part prove inconclusive, and yet gender more speculation or guesswork. A true jade specialist will tell you that age can not be determined by carving style alone, nor will the presence of weathering necessarily indicate actual age, to wit, it has largely to do with environmental conditions, which by itself, presents problems of proper age attribution.�

Both BYu and I have been involved in the studying of such �burial anomalies� although he was indeed the first noticed such phenomenon and established a theory for it. I am more the research type and yet I couldn�t find any written documents to back up this anomaly which might not be an anomaly but instead a common occurrence at the time. This can be due to the fact that there was no written language in the Hongshan culture to record this practice, or the fact that such �anomaly� occurred in much later dynasties and were discontinued after a certain dynasty. Very often, the people took many common practices for granted and would not record them in any written documents. We now know that the Liangzhu culture did place congs in different parts of the deceased�s body during burials and such congs were burned with the body. We could also tell if a culture is maternal or paternal by the positioning of males and females who were buried together. However, if one would attempt to find any written records of such practice in any ancient Chinese books, one might never have found such practice being recorded. We only learned of this recently from actual observations from excavated Liangzhu or Hongshan burial sites. The lack of such documentations, while make it more difficult to confirm such theory or anomaly should not prevent such hypothesis from being true.

While it is true that �carving style� or �carving technique� or �tool marks� cannot determine the age of an archaic Hongshan carving. It is also true that many experienced Hongshan jade experts and collectors are able to identify an authentic Hongshan piece by its �carvings�. In the book, �Hongshan Yuqi Tuhian) (ISBN 7-880646-917-6) written by Yit-man Chen and Ying Chen, numerous chapters are dedicated in the discussion of such unique carvings found on authentic Hongshan jades. Half of Chapter one was used in discussing Hongshan Cloud pei (s) and two of the criteria used in appraising them are �holes� and �Carving marks�. Two unique carving marks �Convex Lines� and �Concave Lines� were discussed. These same terms were used in many Hongshan jade books and by many Hongshan jade collectors in the identification of authentic Hongshan jades because such lines or marks were unique with such Neolithic jade carvings. Basically, the concave lines are those lines made by using a Tu to polish a jade piece (such as a bird). Each time the Tu will be going over previous concave lines, due to the highly skills only found in the Hongshan period, such lines would be almost perfect and that is why the surface of many Hongshan pieces are very lustrous. By using the Tu to make concave lines and leave a certain area untouched, a unique curved �convex� lines similar to those found on the edges of the wings of a Hongshan bird can be achieved. The Chinese use both these two major types of carving lines to identify an authentic piece. Unfortunately, not being a jade carver or an expert myself, and without pictorial guide in showing how such lines can be achieved, even after I have read everything I could about these carving lines, I was still as blind as before. The only way I could master the understanding of these types of carving lines is to have an expert explain them to me with pictures of authentic Hongshan pieces.

There was a Hongshan collector who had read the messages in this forum, who has been collecting Hongshan jades for 30 years, who is also a carver and owns a few authentic Hongshan jades had written me and was willing to share with me some of his knowledge in how to identify similar types of unique carvings in the ID of real Hongshan jades. However, without his permission, I simply cannot share any info here in this forum.

Therefore, while your statements concerning carving style is true to the extent that nobody (at least in this forum) knows how to ID a real Hongshan pieces based on carving marks alone. Many experienced collectors/experts who have spending their whole lives in the study of Hongshan jades and who also have the luxury in studying or possessing authentic pieces do have the know how in doing so. Whether they will share with us is another story.

Using �weathering� to identify the age of a jade carving in order to decide when it was carved is quite different than to identify the age of the jade material used to make the carving. It is important to make the distinction in the very beginning. A piece of jade stone can be old and used to carve modern carving. However, such piece sometimes can be easily detected but sometimes very difficult. On the other side, some �age signs� found on archaic jade carvings cannot be easily or artificially created. Case in point, one time one member posted a piece of very common looking Hongshan carving in this forum. I thought it a modern fake and indeed called it as such. To my surprise, both Anita and Diasai called it an authentic and very nice piece. They did not explain to me in how they came to such conclusion. I went back and studied the pictures of every authentic archaic jade piece on all my jade books and compare them with that piece. After my studies, I was shocked to find that I had actually missed some of the �very visible� �age signs� shown on that piece which were very similar to those �age signs� found on the archaic pieces posted on the jade book. It is very interesting that many jade collectors, including a few at the other forum, after they had collected jades for a long time, they still do not know what they should look for. They are so very blind. (*I may be equally as guilty because the experienced Hongshan jade collector who write me told me I needed to forget everything learned using materials or weathering in ID a real piece.) I have posted some authentic Hongshan pieces in that forum before, the experienced collectors would immediately recognize that they might be �good� pieces although they would not call them outright authentic while the �blind� one would attack them as fakes. That simple test told me immediately who are the real �experts� and who are the �pretenders�. May be it is due to this fact that I do not have a lot of confidence in a few of these self-proclaimed jade experts until they can prove to me that they do know what they are talking about.

Again, please understand that I do not say this with any disrespects. I am just being angry for being attacked without reasons by any people who only attack for attack�s sake. They did and could not support any of their oppositions with any evidences. Instead of contributing any valid points all they did was attacking, attacking and stirring up everybody. I am totally sick of this type of idiotic behavior and in a way I am grateful for Mr. Edward�s attempt to try to cool them down. However, I do not believe his effort has worked so far because such nonsense including ridiculous and childish signs/pictures were still posted in messages (including this one) from opposition parties. Such juvenile delinquent behaviors simply serve as obstructions and distractions to any serious scholar discussions. Yet they have the tenacities in suggesting the ban of myself or anybody who is supporting or agreeing with me.


�In light of the many ancient illustrative records
as kept by the ancient Chinese, I find it rather intriguing that there is no pictorial references in regards to the present artifacts of this discussion. I do however find that there were jade artifacts being produced that represented the Liangzhu Culture in the Ming and early Qing dynasties, but no Hongshan Culture artifacts to speak of.�

My guess to the above observation is:

(1) There are not that many pictorial reference regarding Hongshan jades (period) until recently. Even now, according to members in this forum or that of many western jade experts, most Hongshan references with pictorial references that are not published by the official sources will be deemed unreliable. Even Hongshan jade experts in China disagree with each other. How can we find any type of pictorial references to support whatever we are discussing in this message?
(2) Most collectors and experts are only interested in the absolute �REAL� �Hongshan� jades according to their own appraisal standards. Anything that does not meet with these standards will be rejected as �fakes�. Many of them may not even realize that there are supposed to be three Hongshan periods: Early, Middle and Late. There are currently no literatures published in the discussion of carvings found in these three periods and how to distinguish them. Therefore, how are we going to find any literatures on Hongshan pieces that were carved much later even they might still be related to the Hongshan culture. The fact is nobody really knows too much about Hongshn culture.
(3) Before Hongshan jades became so popular, a few collectors had been quietly and discreetly acquired �Hongshan� culture jades in ridiculously low prices, If they dared to tell other jade collectors they were collecting Hongshan, they would not know what the heck they were talking about and if they tried to explain to them what they were and why they would be very valuable one day, the other collectors would laugh at them to no end.
How many jade collectors would be dumb enough and stupid enough to share such findings with anybody, what are the advantages? To sell them a few old pieces for $1.88 and made a killing?

(4) There are indeed many of these similar pieces being discussed in many Chinese jade forums with pictures listed. I have seen some of them. The problem is that none of these collectors who posted these pictures are experts and nobody will believe what they said. No collective efforts had been spent in the studying of those �in-between period� Hongshan jades with agreed-upon criteria. Even after an individual collector may have spent their life time in studying them, they may not have the time nor the money to publish any books. Where else can they publish their findings? In this forum? Even many respectable Hongshan jade experts had problems in raising money to publish their jade books. One had to sell pieces from his own collection to raise money. The misconception that it is cheap to print a jade book in China is both na�ve and unrealistic. A good and big jade book with large high-solution colorful pictures of archaic jade carvings simply cost a fortune. I one time asked a friend to find two of these books for me and he had to make three trips to BeiJiang in order to do so. There would not be too many sales and many authors will lose money in publishing them. None of us outside China have that many jade books related to Hongshan jades, therefore we simply do not have the resources to know everything including Hongshan replicas made in other dynasties or made by the descendants of the Hongshan culture.

One thing I would like to make very clear here is that I am not B Yu while I believe it will be an honor to be mistaken as him and thus as wise. (*In that regard, I am also not Randy Li although I would like to be as knowledgeable as him regarding jade collecting.) B Yu had several advanced degrees in chemical engineering and sciences from renowned universities in the States. While he was still a graduate student, he had already published four papers. After graduation, he worked for a world-renown paper company. He was known around his industry due to his discovery resulted from his researches. He was so smart that he retired when he was only 47 and became a self-made millionaire. I am introducing his resume here not to show that he is necessarily a jade expert. Rather, it is to show that he simply has a lot of academic trainings, scholar intelligence and most important of all, �common sense�. While I believe very often he can be wrong and I do disagree with him, however, many times I do find some of his theories made a lot of sense. He discovered a unique way in enabling the showing of true color of archaic jades while such method simply has no effect on fade jades. Using the same method, I was able to revitalize three jade pieces with heavy metallic rusty surfaces and one piece with chicken-bone white surface. Such success in turning a theory into practical use I believe it is due to his engineering background and his actual working experience in the researches and manufacturing of different types of paper. Therefore, I learn that no matter how far fetching some of his ideas or theories may first seem, I simply cannot afford to be arrogant in ignoring them. Therefore, please be assured that I am in no way speaking on behalf on him in answering all these statements and questions of Mr. Edward. It simply intrigues me that we are finally able to participate in some intelligent discussions and I just go back to my usual rambling in presenting my two cents� worth in the hope of attracting other serious discussions. I believe B Yu is more than capable in defending his own theory. The one forum member who can shed the most light on the subject of �What happened to the Hongshan culture and its descendents after 2900 BC and what � may be Diasai.

Thank you.

Bill




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