Advocates for the preservation of a Hanben Culture (漢本遺址) archeological site in Yilan County — uncovered during work for the Suhua Highway Improvement Project — yesterday urged the Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) to change the route of the project, allow archeologists to expand the site of their archeological dig and allocate them more time.
The site was discovered in May 2012 by workers building the Gufong Tunnel (谷風隧道) between Yilan County’s Nanao (南澳) and Heping (和平) townships.
The DGH asked Academia Sinica to conduct an excavation to retrieve prehistoric items from the ground.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
The items found at the Hanben historical site are as important to gaining an understanding of Taiwan in the prehistoric age as those found at the Shisanghang historical site (十三行遺址) in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), Academia Sinica Institute of History and Philology researcher Liu Yi-chang (劉益昌) said.
The ministry should not blame the excavations for the delay in the Suhua Highway Improvement project, as there were other factors causing the DGH to postpone the launch date, the advocates said.
Archeologists were only allocated 250 days to complete their dig, which meant they had to rush their work, advocates said.
The Ministry of Culture or Yilan County’s Cultural Affairs Bureau should quickly designate the area a site of national historical significance, they said.
However, the route is located in remote mountainous areas, and all the tunnels and bridges that have been built in the past five to six years would become worthless if the government changes the route, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Jian-yu (陳建宇) said.
“If it becomes a coastal route, then the project would have to undergo an environmental impact assessment review again and the launch date would be further postponed from 2018 to 2027,” Chen said, adding that the Yilan County Government is scheduled to have a meeting to determine the status of the site later this month.
The construction crew has already excavated 7.5km of the 9.1km needed to build the Gufong Tunnel, Suhua Improvement Engineering Office deputy director Lee Tsung-jen (李宗仁) said.
They have also completed the Heping River Bridge, and the Hanben Overpass and its embankment, he said.
All these facilities would become useless if the authority changes the route, he said, adding that the government has already spent NT$4 billion (US$118.25 million) on the infrastructure.
It is difficult to estimate how much more the government would have to spend if it decides to choose a different route, because they do not know how much ground the historical site actually covers, Lee said.
In addition to the team from Academia Sinica, Lee said the DGH has also recruited another team to speed up the excavation, adding that it has spent a total of NT$120 million funding these archeological endeavors.
“We do not rush the teams. The 250 working days were calculated based on a reasonable timeline that was used in similar projects,” he said.
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