I am an editorial writer at The Korea Times, focusing on foreign policy, North Korea and domestic politics. My key areas of interest include North Korea, foreign interference in elections, election integrity, cyberattacks and human rights. Prior to joining the Editorial Board, I served as both Politics Desk editor and Culture Desk editor. During my career, I have reported on the Presidential Office under the Lee Myung-bak administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Assembly.
US airman's love of rocks results in shift in archaeological studies
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Greg Bowen, right, speaks to Yi Seon-bok, a professor of archaeology at Seoul National University, in May 2005 when the Bowens were invited to the Jeongok-ri Paleolithic Festival. / Courtesy of Sang-mi Bowen
By Kang Hyun-kyung
By Kang Hyun-kyung
In 1977, U.S. Air Force senior airman Greg Bowen and his then Korean girlfriend and later wife, Yi Sang-mi, were walking in Jeongok-ri around the Hantan River near the Demilitarized Zone when he noticed a stone sticking out of the ground.
After looking at the stone closely, Bowen realized that he had found something historically important. He had some knowledge of archeology through his lifelong interest in rocks and brief training in anthropology at Ohio State University before joining the Air Force as a special combat weather observer.
After carefully removing the dirt around the stone, he picked it up and then realized that he had stumbled upon an ancient axe.
The world’s oldest hand axe discovered by Greg Bowen
Experts later confirmed the object is the oldest known hand axe, dating back to the Paleolithic era. The axe was the first of its kind to be found in East Asia, providing a critical piece of information that invalidated the widely accepted idea of Western superiority in stone tool technology during the Paleolithic era.
"His heart was beating fast at that moment. He knew right then that one of his dreams had come true," Mrs. Bowen, today a senior financial specialist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, told The Korea Times. "He was the most excited man in the world. He was jumping up and down."
Bowen died at 57 in 2009 after a long battle with arthritis that started in 1998.
He met his wife while he was stationed in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province, years after he was deployed in Vietnam during the war there.
He and his wife returned to the United States in 1978 after he completed his service in the Air Force. Encouraged by his discovery of the oldest hand axe and several other ancient relics in Korea, Bowen enrolled at the University of Arizona as a graduate student and obtained a master’s degree in archeology and anthropology.
He has since published many articles and illustrations in archeological and anthropological journals, magazines and books. He was offered a job at the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation as the director of Archeological Historic Preservation, working there for 10 years until he resigned owing to his illness.
"I was told that Greg had been interested in rocks since he was five years old. He constantly turned rocks over, picked them up, dug up the dirt to find and collect them and crawled into caves looking for them," Mrs. Bowen said.
Greg Bowen, on the right-hand side, and his wife Sang-mi are seated at a meeting with Yoo Hong-joon, left, then director of Cultural Heritage Administration, and Kim Gyu-bae, center, then mayor of Yeoncheon County in May 2005. / Courtesy of Yeoncheon County
Mr. Bowen’s childhood curiosity about rocks developed into a lifelong interest in archeology and ancient artifacts and relics. His discovery of the oldest hand axe in Jeongok-ri near the Hantan River in the northeast county of Yeongcheon was the result of his tireless search for and study of rocks and ancient relics.
"While we were walking around Jeongok-ri near the Hantan River in 1977, I remember him telling me that this was the kind of place that would be perfect for finding artifacts, including pottery and arrowheads. We found pieces of pottery near the river," recalled Mrs. Bowen.
Once he found those pieces, she said, her husband would take them home and wash them carefully using a toothbrush and then try to put them back together.
Mr. Bowen’s discovery of the oldest hand axe was a historic moment because the axe provided critical information about the status of stone tool technology in East Asia in ancient times.
Prior to the discovery, American archeologist Hallam Movius’ theory of technological differences between the early prehistoric tools of the East and of the West had dominated the archeological community. In 1948, he put forth the so-called Movius Line, a theoretical line drawn across northern India based on the collections of Paleolithic stone tools. The line indicated that the sites in northeast India didn’t contain hand axes during the Paleolithic era, suggesting that the technology level there was relatively inferior to the region inside the line, including the West.
Hand axes were considered a more advanced form of technology than other stone tools, paving the way for the Western superiority-based interpretation of the prehistoric era.
Yi Seon-bok, a professor of archaeology at Seoul National University, said the ancient hand axe discovered in Jeongok-ri refuted the Movius Line theory and its implications.
"Greg’s discovery was historically invaluable because it proved that the existing theory was wrong. Before it, the Movius Line had been widely accepted among archeologists, mainly because hand axes were not found in East Asia,"” Yi said. "Thus, the discovery symbolized a paradigm shift in archaeological studies."
Several other ancient hand axes have since been found at other sites across the nation, as well as in China.
Professor Yi first met Bowen when the former was a senior student at Seoul National University.
In 1978, the American airman dropped by the university to meet with professor Kim Won-yong, one of the foremost experts in Asian archeology, to discuss his historical finding.
According to Yi, Bowen first contacted Francois Bordes, then the leading expert in archaeology who lived in France. Unable to travel to Korea at that time, the French expert encouraged Bowen to meet with Professor Kim to discuss his finding. The American airman did so the following year.
"Greg said there was something that he’d like to show us and then he took the old hand axe out of his backpack. When I first saw it, I didn’t know exactly what it was and merely thought that it was similar to what I had seen in history books," Yi said.
Professor Kim was so thrilled about the relic that he hurriedly prepared to embark on a field trip to Jeonkok-ri to investigate if there were more ancient relics there, according to Yi.
An extensive site investigation ensued, resulting in the discovery of some 60 more ancient relics in the neighborhood around the Imjin River.
"Without Greg’s discovery, all those historically critical relics could have disappeared because the readjustment of the arable land was scheduled to take place there," Yi said.
In May 2005, Bowen and his wife were invited to the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the annual Yeoncheon Jeongok-ri Paleolithic Festival. During the ceremony, Bowen was quoted by the local media as saying he received two incomparable gifts during his deployment in Korea: his wife and the ancient relics he discovered in Jeongok-ri. He also described their daughter Shannon as the greatest accomplishment of his life.
“We felt extremely honored and excited and very much appreciated that he was not forgotten,” his wife recalled of the ceremony.
"It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we felt very proud to be able to show our daughter Shannon the history that he helped discover in Korea. It was like an incredible dream and an experience most archaeologists can only dream about."