Prehistory of the Philippines
Encyclopedia
Philippine prehistory covers the events prior to the written history of what would become the Philippine archipelago
. The current demarcation line between this period and the early history of the Philippines
is 900 AD, which is the date of the first surviving written record to come from the Philippines, the Laguna Copperplate Inscription
. This period saw the immense change that took hold of the archipelago from Stone Age culturens in the 4th century AD, continuing on with the gradual widening of trade until 900 AD and the first surviving written records.
refers to the earliest noticeable stage in the development of proto-Philippine societies as the Formative Phase. He also identified stone tool and ceramics making as the two core industries that defined the economic activity of the time, and which shaped the means by which early Filipinos adapted to their environment during this period.
About 30,000 BC, the Negritos, who became the ancestors of today's Aeta
s, or Aboriginal Filipinos, descended from more northerly abodes in Central Asia passing through the Indian Subcontinent and reaching the Andamanese Islands. From thereon, the Negritos continued to venture on land bridges reaching Southeast Asia
. While some of the Negritos settled in Malaysia, becoming what is now the Orang Asli
people, several Negrito tribes continued on to the Philippines through Borneo. No evidence has survived which would indicate details of Ancient Filipino life such as their crops, color, and architecture. Philippine historian William Henry Scott points out any theory which describes such details is therefore a pure hypothesis and should be honestly presented as such.
to become the earliest human remains known in the Philippines, and one of the oldest human remains in the Asia Pacific.
. These fragments are collectively called "Tabon Man
" after the place where they were found on the west coast of Palawan
. Tabon Cave
appears to be a kind of Stone Age
factory, with both finished stone flake tool
s and waste core flakes having been found at four separate levels in the main chamber. Charcoal left from three assemblages of cooking fires there has been Carbon-14
dated to roughly 7,000, 20,000, and 22,000 BCE. (In Mindanao
, the existence and importance of these prehistoric tools was noted by famed José Rizal
himself, because of his acquaintance with Spanish
and German
scientific archaeologists in the 1880s, while in Europe.)
Tabon Cave is named after the "Tabon Bird" (Tabon Scrubfowl
, Megapodius Cumingii), which deposited thick hard layers of guano
during periods when the cave was uninhabited so that succeeding groups of tool-makers settled on a cement-like floor of bird dung. That the inhabitants were actually engaged in tool manufacture is indicated that about half of the 3,000 recovered specimens examined are discarded cores of a material which had to be transported from some distance. The Tabon man fossils are considered to have come from a third group of inhabitants, who worked the cave between 22,000 and 20,000 BCE. An earlier cave level lies so far below the level containing cooking fire assemblages that it must represent Upper Pleistocene dates like 45 or 50 thousand years ago.
Physical anthropologists who have examined the Tabon Man skullcap are agreed that it belonged to modern man, homo sapiens, as distinguished from the mid-Pleistocene Homo erectus
species. This indicates that Tabon Man was Pre-Mongoloid (Mongoloid being the term anthropologists apply to the racial stock which entered Southeast Asia during the Holocene
and absorbed earlier peoples to produce the modern Malay, Indonesian, Filipino, and "Pacific" peoples). Two experts have given the opinion that the mandible is "Australian" in physical type, and that the skullcap measurements are most nearly like the Ainus or Tasmanians. Nothing can be concluded about Tabon man's physical appearance from the recovered skull fragments except that he was not a Negrito.
The custom of Jar Burial, which ranges from Sri Lanka
, to the Plain of Jars
, in Laos
, to Japan
, also was practiced in the Tabon caves. A spectacular example of a secondary burial jar is owned by the National Museum, a National Treasure, with a jar lid topped with two figures, one the deceased, arms crossed, hands touching the shoulders, the other a steersman, both seated in a proa
, with only the mast missing from the piece. Secondary burial was practiced across all the islands of the Philippines during this period, with the bones reburied, some in the burial jars. Seventy-eight earthenware vessels were recovered from the Manunggul cave, Palawan
, specifically for burial.
, founder of the Anthropology Department of the University of the Philippines. According to Dr. Beyer, the ancestors of the Filipinos came to the islands first via land bridge
s which would occur during times when the sea level was low, and then later in seagoing vessels such as the balangay
. Thus he differentiated these ancestors as arriving in different "waves of migration", as follows:
Beyer's theory, while still popular among lay Filipinos, has been generally been disputed by anthropologists and historians. Reasons for doubting it are founded on Beyer's use of 19th century scientific methods of progressive evolution and migratory diffusion as the basis for his hypothesis. These methods have since been proven to be too simple and unreliable to explain the prehistoric peopling of the Philippines.
, questioned the validity of the theory of land bridges. He maintained that the Philippines was never part of mainland Asia
. He claimed that it arose from the bottom of the sea and, as the thin Pacific crust moved below it, continued to rise. It continues to rise today. The country lies along great Earth faults that extend to deep submarine trench
es. The resulting violent earthquake
s caused what is now the land masses forming the Philippines to rise to the surface of the sea. Dr. Voss also pointed out that when scientific studies were done on the Earth's crust from 1964 to 1967, it was discovered that the 35-kilometer- thick crust underneath China does not reach the Philippines. Thus, the latter could not have been a land bridge to the Asian mainland. The matter of who the first settlers were has not been really resolved. This is being disputed by anthropologists, as well as Professor H. Otley Beyer, who claims that the first inhabitants of the Philippines came from the Malay Peninsula. The Malays now constitute the largest portion of the populace and what Filipinos now have is an Austronesian culture.
Philippine historian William Henry Scott
has pointed out that Palawan and the Calamianes Islands are separated from Borneo by water nowhere deeper than 100 meters, that south of a line drawn between Saigon and Brunei does the depth of the South China Sea
nowhere exceeds 100 meters, and that the Strait of Malacca
reaches 50 meters only at one point. Scott also asserts that the Sulu Archipelago
is not the peak of a submerged mountain range connecting Mindanao and Borneo, but the exposed edge of three small ridges produced by tectonic tilting
of the sea bottom in recent geologic times. According to Scott, it is clear that Palawan and the Calamianes do not stand on a submerged land bridge, but were once a hornlike protuberance on the shoulder of a continent whose southern shoreline used to be the present islands of Java and Borneo. Mindoro and the Calamianes are separated by a channel more than 500 meters deep
The popular contemporary alternative to Beyer's model is Peter Bellwood
’s Out-of-Taiwan (OOT) hypothesis, which is based largely on linguistics, hewing very close to Robert Blust
’s model of the history of the Austronesian language family, and supplementing it with archeological data.
This model suggests that Between 4500 BCE and 4000 BCE, developments in agricultural technology in the Yunnan Plateau in China
created pressures which drove certain peoples to migrate to Taiwan
. These people either already had or began to develop a unique language of their own, now referred to as Proto-Austronesian.
By around 3000 BCE, these groups started differentiating into three or four distinct subcultures, and by 2500 to 1500 BC, one of these groups began migrating southwards towards the Philippines and Indonesia
, reaching as far as Borneo
and the Moluccas by 1500 BCE, forming new cultural groupings and developing unique languages.
By 1500 BC, some of these groups started migrating west, reaching as far as Madagascar
around the first millennium CE. Others migrated east, settling as far as Easter Island
by the mid-13th century CE, giving the Austronesian language group the distinction of being the most widely distributed language groups in the world at that time, in terms of the geographical span of the homelands of its languages.
According to this theory, the peoples of the Philippines are the descendants of those cultures who remained on the Philippine islands when others moved first southwards, then eastward and westward.
's concept of the Nusantao Maritime Trading and Communication Network
(NMTCN), while not strictly a theory regarding the biological ancestors of modern Southeast Asians, does suggest that the patterns of cultural diffusion throughout the Asia-Pacific region are not what would be expected if such cultures were to be explained by simple migration. Where Bellwood based his analysis primarily on linguistic analysis, Solheim's approach was based on artifact findings. On the basis of a careful analysis of artifacts, he suggests the existence of a trade and communication network that first spread in the Asia-Pacific region during its Neolithic age (c.8,000 to 500 BC). According to Solheim's NMTCN theory, this trade network, consisting of both Austronesian and non-Austronesian seafaring peoples, was responsible for the spread of cultural patterns throughout the Asia-Pacific region, not the simple migration proposed by the Out-of-Taiwan hypothesis.
Solheim came up with four geographical divisions delineating the spread of the NMTCN over time, calling these geographical divisions "lobes." Specifically, these were the central, northern, eastern and western lobes.
The central lobe was further divided into two smaller lobes reflecting phases of cultural spread: the Early Central Lobe and the Late Central Lobe. Instead of Austronesian peoples originating from Taiwan, Solheim placed the origins of the early NMTCN peoples in the "Early Central Lobe," which was in eastern coastal Vietnam, at around 9000 BC.
He then suggests the spread of peoples around 5000 BC towards the "Late central lobe", including the Philippines, via island Southeast Asia, rather than from the north as the Taiwan theory suggests. Thus, from the Point of view of the Philippine peoples, the NMTCN is also referred to as the Island Origin Theory.
This "late central lobe" included southern China and Taiwan, which became "the area where Austronesian became the original language family and
Malayo-Polynesian developed." In about 4000 to 3000 BC, these peoples continued spreading east through Northern Luzon to Micronesia to form the Early Eastern Lobe, carrying the Malayo-Polynesian languages with them. These languages would become part of the culture spread by the NMTCN in its expansions Malaysia and western towards Malaysia before 2000 BC, continuing along coastal India
and Sri Lanka up to the western coast of Africa and
Madagascar; and over time, further eastward towards its easternmost borders at Easter Island. Thus, as in the case of Bellwood's theory, the Austronesian languages spread eastward and westward from the area around the Philippines. Aside from the matter of the origination of peoples, the difference between the two theories is that Bellwood's theory suggests a linear expansion, while Solheim's suggests something more akin to concentric circles, all overlapping in the geographical area of the late central lobe which includes the Philippines.
, who in 2001 contended that the existing fossil evidence of ancient humans demonstrates that they not only migrated to the Philippines, but also to New Guinea
, Borneo
, and Australia
. In reference to Beyer's wave model, he points out that there is no definitive way to determine the "race" of the human fossils; the only certain thing is that the discovery of Tabon Man proves that the Philippines was inhabited as early as 21,000 or 22,000 years ago. If this is true, the first inhabitants of the Philippines would not have come from the Malay Peninsula. Instead, Jocano postulates that the present Filipinos are products of the long process of evolution and movement of people. He also adds that this is also true of Indonesians and Malaysians, with none among the three peoples being the dominant carrier of culture. In fact, he suggests that the ancient humans who populated Southeast Asia cannot be categorized under any of these three groups. He thus further suggests that it is not correct to consider Filipino culture as being Malayan in orientation.
study conducted during 2001 revealed that Haplogroup O3
-M122 (labeled as "Haplogroup L" in this study) is the most common Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup found among Filipinos. This particular haplogroup is also predominant among Chinese, Koreans, and Vietnamese. Another haplogroup, Haplogroup O1a
-M119 (labeled as "Haplogroup H" in this study), is also found among Filipinos. The rates of Haplogroup O1a are highest among the Taiwanese aborigines, and Chamic
-speaking people. Genetic data found among a sampling of Filipinos may indicate some relation to the Ami tribe of Taiwan.
lineages have been evolving within Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) since modern humans arrived approximately 50,000 years ago. Population dispersals occurred at the same time as sea levels rose, which resulted in migrations from the Philippine Islands into Taiwan within the last 10,000 years.
A 2002 China Medical University
study indicated that some Filipinos shared genetic chromosome that is found among Asian people
, such as Taiwanese aborigines, Indonesians, Thais, and Chinese.
A variety of research study by the University of the Philippines
, genetic chromosome were found in Filipinos which are shared by people from different parts of East Asia
, and Southeast Asia. The predominant genotype detected was SC, the Southeast Asian genotype. However, only about 50 urine samples were collected for the study, far below the minimum sample size needed to account for credible test results.
These indigenous elements in the Filipino's genetic makeup serve as clues to the patterns of migration throughout Philippine prehistory. After the 16th century, of course, the colonial period saw the influx of genetic influence from Europeans. During the above mentioned study conducted by Stanford University Asia-Pacific Research Center, it was stated that 3.6% of the Philippine population has varying degrees of European ancestry from Spanish, and American colonization.
However, only 28 individuals from the Philippines were genotyped for this study, again a sample size far below the minimum sample size needed to account for credible test results in a population of over 90 million individuals.
has observed that, based on lexicostatistical
analysis involving seven million word pairs, linguist Isidore Dyen
offered in 1962 two alternative scenarios explaining the origin and spread of Austronesian languages: (a) that they originated in some Pacific island and spread westward to Asia, or (b) that they originated in Taiwan and spread southward. Based on subsequent study of the second alternative, Scott concludes that the Philippine language tree could have been introduced by Austronesian speakers as long ago as 5000 BC, probably from the north, with their descendants expanding throughout the Philippine archipelago and beyond in succeeding millennia, absorbing or replacing sparse populations already present, and their language diversifying into dozens of mutually unintelligible languages which replaced earlier ones. During those millennia, other Austronesian speakers (e.g., the Nesiots mentioned above) entered the Philippines in large enough numbers to leave a linguistic mark but not to replace established languages. Scott suggested that if this scenario is correct all present Philippine languages (except for Sama–Bajaw languages, which probably have more speakers outside the Philippines than within) were produced within the archipelago, none of them being introduced by separate migration, and all of them having more in common with each other than with languages outside of the Philippines.
Where communities once consisted of small bands of kinsmen living in campsites, larger villages came about- usually based near water, which made traveling and trading easier. The resulting ease of contact between communities meant that they began to share similar cultural traits, something which had not previously been possible when the communities consisted only of small kinship groups.
Jocano refers to the period between 500 BC and 1 AD as the incipient phase, which for the first time in the artifact record, sees the presence of artifacts that are similar in design from site to site throughout the archipelago. Along with the use of metal tools, this era also saw significant improvement in pottery technology.
, the "Golden One," which is the name given by ancient Greek writers in reference to an island rich in gold east of India. Pomponius Mela, Marinos of Tyre and the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentioned this island in 100 BC, and it is basically the equivalent to the Indian Suvarnadvipa, the "Island of Gold." Josephus calls it in Latin Aurea, and equates the island with biblical Ophir, from where the ships of Tyre and Solomon brought back gold and other trade items. The Visayan Islands, particularly Cebu
had earlier encounter with the Greek
traders in 21 AD.
Ptolemy
locates the islands of Chryse east of the Khruses Kersonenson, the "Golden Peninsula," i.e. the Malaya Peninsula. North of Chryse in the Periplus was Thin, which some consider the first European reference to China. Scholars however know that Thin or Gin as in Gintu - Suvarnadvipa originates from Chinese word for gold "jin") Chinese have traded with and settled in Philippines thousands of years before West even knew of this area. In about the 200 BC
, there arose a practice of using gold eye covers, and then, gold facial orifice covers to adorn the dead resulting in an increase of ancient gold finds.
During the Qin dynasty
and the Tang dynasty
, China was well aware of the golden lands far to the south. The Buddhist pilgrim I-Tsing mentions Chin-Chou, "Isle of Gold" in the archipelago south of China on his way back from India. Medieval Muslims refer to the islands as the Kingdoms of Zabag and Wakwak as rich in gold, referring to the eastern islands of the Malay archipelago, the location of present-day Philippines and Eastern Indonesia.
Since at least the 3rd century, the indigenous peoples were in contact with other Southeast Asian and East Asian nations.
Fragmented ethnic groups established numerous city-states formed by the assimilation of several small political units known as barangay
each headed by a Datu or headman (still in use among non-Hispanic Filipino ethnic groups) and answerable to a king, titled Raja
h. Even scattered barangays, through the development of inter-island and international trade, became more culturally homogeneous by the 4th century. Hindu
-Buddhist culture and religion flourished among the noblemen in this era. Many of the barangay were, to varying extents, under the de-jure jurisprudence of one of several neighboring empires, among them the Malay Sri Vijaya, Java
nese Majapahit, Brunei, Melaka empires, although de-facto had established their own independent system of rule. Trading links with Sumatra
, Borneo
, Thailand
, Java
, China
, India
, Arabia, Japan and the Ryukyu Kingdom
flourished during this era. A thalassocracy
had thus emerged based on international trade.
Each barangay consisted of about 100 families. Some barangays were big, such as Zubu (Cebu), Butuan, Maktan (Mactan),Mandani (Mandaue), Lalan (Liloan), Irong-Irong (Iloilo), Bigan (Vigan), and Selurong (Manila). Each of these big barangays had a population of more than 2,000.
In the earliest times, the items which were prized by the peoples included jars, which were a symbol of wealth throughout South Asia, and later metal, salt and tobacco. In exchange, the peoples would trade feathers, rhino horn, hornbill beaks, beeswax, birds nests, resin, rattan.2
In the period between the 7th century to the beginning of the 15th century, numerous prosperous centers of trade had emerged, including the Kingdom of Namayan which flourished alongside Manila Bay, Cebu
, Iloilo
, Butuan, the Kingdom of Sanfotsi situated in Pangasinan
, the Kingdoms of Zabag and Wak-Wak situated in Pampanga
and Aparri (which specialized in trade with Japan
and the Kingdom of Ryukyu in Okinawa).
" or "Copper-Bronze Age" in the archipelago, a development which occurred in many areas of the world. The transition, as shown by recent excavation, was from stone tools to iron tools."
The earliest use of metal in the Philippines was the use of copper for ornamentation, not tools. Even when copper and bronze tools became common, they were often used side by side with stone tools. Metal only became the dominant material for tools late in this era, leading to a new phase in cultural development.
Bronze tools from the Philippines' early metal age have been encountered in various sites, but they were not widespread. This has been attributed to the lack of a local source of tin, which when combined with copper produces bronze. This lack has led most anthropologists to conclude that bronze items were imported and that those bronze smelting sites which have been found in the Philippines, in Palawan, were for re-smelting and remolding.
Metalsmiths from this era had already developed a crude version of modern metallurgical processes, notably the hardening of soft iron through carburization
.
, which began in 1521, many artifacts were destroyed or re-used. A good example is the Spanish walled city of Intramuros
in Manila
, whose stone bricks were taken from the original city wall of pre-Hispanic Maynila
. As new evidence is discovered, old theories are adapted or new ones developed, which has led to numerous and sometimes conflicting theories about the prehistory of the Philippines. In short, the lack of artifacts and other evidence has led to a lack of consensus among prehistory historians.
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. The current demarcation line between this period and the early history of the Philippines
History of the Philippines (900-1521)
The known history of the Philippines is marked by the creation of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription , the first written document found in a Philippine language. The inscription itself identifies the date of its creation as the year 900...
is 900 AD, which is the date of the first surviving written record to come from the Philippines, the Laguna Copperplate Inscription
Laguna Copperplate Inscription
The Laguna Copperplate Inscription is the earliest known written document found in the Philippines. The plate was found in 1989 by a sand laborer working on Lumbang River near the outlet to Laguna de Bay, in Barangay Wawa, Lumban, in the Laguna province.The inscription on the plate was first...
. This period saw the immense change that took hold of the archipelago from Stone Age culturens in the 4th century AD, continuing on with the gradual widening of trade until 900 AD and the first surviving written records.
Stone-Age (c.50,000 - c.500 BC)
The first evidence of the systematic use of Stone-Age technologies in the Philippines is estimated to have dated back to about 50,000 BC, and this phase in the development of proto-Philippine societies is considered to end with the rise of metal tools in about 500 BC, although stone tools continued to be used past that date. Filipino Anthropologist F. Landa JocanoF. Landa Jocano
Felipe Landa Jocano is an anthropologist and a Professor Emeritus at the Asian Center of the University of the Philippines and Executive Director of PUNLAD Research House, Inc...
refers to the earliest noticeable stage in the development of proto-Philippine societies as the Formative Phase. He also identified stone tool and ceramics making as the two core industries that defined the economic activity of the time, and which shaped the means by which early Filipinos adapted to their environment during this period.
About 30,000 BC, the Negritos, who became the ancestors of today's Aeta
Aeta
The Aeta , Agta or Ayta are an indigenous people who live in scattered, isolated mountainous parts of Luzon, Philippines. They are considered to be Negritos, who are dark to very dark brown-skinned and tend to have features such as a small stature, small frame, curly to kinky afro-like textured...
s, or Aboriginal Filipinos, descended from more northerly abodes in Central Asia passing through the Indian Subcontinent and reaching the Andamanese Islands. From thereon, the Negritos continued to venture on land bridges reaching Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
. While some of the Negritos settled in Malaysia, becoming what is now the Orang Asli
Orang Asli
Orang Asli , is a generic Malaysian term used for people indigenous to Peninsular Malaysia...
people, several Negrito tribes continued on to the Philippines through Borneo. No evidence has survived which would indicate details of Ancient Filipino life such as their crops, color, and architecture. Philippine historian William Henry Scott points out any theory which describes such details is therefore a pure hypothesis and should be honestly presented as such.
Callao Man (c. 41000 BC)
The earliest human remains known in the Philippines are the fossilized remains discovered in 2007 by Armand Salvador Mijares in Callao Cave, Cagayan,Philippines. A 67,000 years old remains that predates Tabon Man. Specifically, the find consisted of a single 61 milimeter metatarsal which, when dated using uranium series ablation, was found to be at least about 67,000 years old. If definitively proven to be remains of Homo sapiens, it would antedate the 47,000 year old remains of Tabon ManTabon Man
Tabon Man refers to fossilized anatomically modern human remains discovered on the island of Palawan in the Philippines on May 28, 1962 by Dr. Robert B. Fox, an American anthropologist of the National Museum of the Philippines...
to become the earliest human remains known in the Philippines, and one of the oldest human remains in the Asia Pacific.
Tabon Man (c. 24000 or 22,000 BC)
A fossilized fragments of a skull and jawbone of three individuals, discovered on May 28, 1962 by Dr. Robert B. Fox, an American anthropologist of the National MuseumNational Museum of the Philippines
The Museum of the Filipino People is a department of the National Museum of the Philippines that houses the Anthropology and Archaeology Divisions of the National Museum. It is located in the Agrifina Circle, Rizal Park, Manila adjacent to the main National Museum building...
. These fragments are collectively called "Tabon Man
Tabon Man
Tabon Man refers to fossilized anatomically modern human remains discovered on the island of Palawan in the Philippines on May 28, 1962 by Dr. Robert B. Fox, an American anthropologist of the National Museum of the Philippines...
" after the place where they were found on the west coast of Palawan
Palawan
Palawan is an island province of the Philippines located in the MIMAROPA region or Region 4. Its capital is Puerto Princesa City, and it is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of jurisdiction. The islands of Palawan stretch from Mindoro in the northeast to Borneo in the...
. Tabon Cave
Tabon Cave
The Tabon Caves are a set of caves north of Quezon municipality, in the south western part of the province of Palawan on Palawan Island, in the Philippines. The caves are named after the Tabon Scrubfowl. Tabon Caves is bordered on the south by the town proper of Quezon, Bgy. Panitian on the west,...
appears to be a kind of Stone Age
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
factory, with both finished stone flake tool
Lithic flake
In archaeology, a lithic flake is a "portion of rock removed from an objective piece by percussion or pressure," and may also be referred to as a chip or spall, or collectively as debitage. The objective piece, or the rock being reduced by the removal of flakes, is known as a core. Once the proper...
s and waste core flakes having been found at four separate levels in the main chamber. Charcoal left from three assemblages of cooking fires there has been Carbon-14
Carbon-14
Carbon-14, 14C, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with a nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and colleagues , to date archaeological, geological, and hydrogeological...
dated to roughly 7,000, 20,000, and 22,000 BCE. (In Mindanao
Mindanao
Mindanao is the second largest and easternmost island in the Philippines. It is also the name of one of the three island groups in the country, which consists of the island of Mindanao and smaller surrounding islands. The other two are Luzon and the Visayas. The island of Mindanao is called The...
, the existence and importance of these prehistoric tools was noted by famed José Rizal
José Rizal
José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda , was a Filipino polymath, patriot and the most prominent advocate for reform in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. He is regarded as the foremost Filipino patriot and is listed as one of the national heroes of the Philippines by...
himself, because of his acquaintance with Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
scientific archaeologists in the 1880s, while in Europe.)
Tabon Cave is named after the "Tabon Bird" (Tabon Scrubfowl
Tabon Scrubfowl
The Philippine Megapode , also known as the Philippine Scrubfowl or the Tabon Scrubfowl, is a species of bird in the Megapodiidae family. It is found in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines...
, Megapodius Cumingii), which deposited thick hard layers of guano
Guano
Guano is the excrement of seabirds, cave dwelling bats, and seals. Guano manure is an effective fertilizer due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and also its lack of odor. It was an important source of nitrates for gunpowder...
during periods when the cave was uninhabited so that succeeding groups of tool-makers settled on a cement-like floor of bird dung. That the inhabitants were actually engaged in tool manufacture is indicated that about half of the 3,000 recovered specimens examined are discarded cores of a material which had to be transported from some distance. The Tabon man fossils are considered to have come from a third group of inhabitants, who worked the cave between 22,000 and 20,000 BCE. An earlier cave level lies so far below the level containing cooking fire assemblages that it must represent Upper Pleistocene dates like 45 or 50 thousand years ago.
Physical anthropologists who have examined the Tabon Man skullcap are agreed that it belonged to modern man, homo sapiens, as distinguished from the mid-Pleistocene Homo erectus
Homo erectus
Homo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived from the end of the Pliocene epoch to the later Pleistocene, about . The species originated in Africa and spread as far as India, China and Java. There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H...
species. This indicates that Tabon Man was Pre-Mongoloid (Mongoloid being the term anthropologists apply to the racial stock which entered Southeast Asia during the Holocene
Holocene
The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...
and absorbed earlier peoples to produce the modern Malay, Indonesian, Filipino, and "Pacific" peoples). Two experts have given the opinion that the mandible is "Australian" in physical type, and that the skullcap measurements are most nearly like the Ainus or Tasmanians. Nothing can be concluded about Tabon man's physical appearance from the recovered skull fragments except that he was not a Negrito.
The custom of Jar Burial, which ranges from Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, to the Plain of Jars
Plain of Jars
The Plain of Jars is a megalithic archaeological landscape in Laos. Scattered in the landscape of the Xieng Khouang plateau Xieng Khouang, Lao PDR, are thousands of megalithic jars...
, in Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
, to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, also was practiced in the Tabon caves. A spectacular example of a secondary burial jar is owned by the National Museum, a National Treasure, with a jar lid topped with two figures, one the deceased, arms crossed, hands touching the shoulders, the other a steersman, both seated in a proa
Proa
A proa, also seen as prau, perahu, and prahu, is a type of multihull sailing vessel.While the word perahu and proa are generic terms meaning boat their native language, proa in Western languages has come to describe a vessel consisting of two unequal length parallel hulls...
, with only the mast missing from the piece. Secondary burial was practiced across all the islands of the Philippines during this period, with the bones reburied, some in the burial jars. Seventy-eight earthenware vessels were recovered from the Manunggul cave, Palawan
Palawan
Palawan is an island province of the Philippines located in the MIMAROPA region or Region 4. Its capital is Puerto Princesa City, and it is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of jurisdiction. The islands of Palawan stretch from Mindoro in the northeast to Borneo in the...
, specifically for burial.
Migration Theories
There have been several models of early human migration to the Philippines. Since H. Otley Beyer first proposed his wave migration theory, numerous scholars have approached the question of how, when and why humans first came to the Philippines. The question of whether the first humans arrived from the south (Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei as suggested by Beyer) or from the north (via Taiwan as suggested by the Austronesian theory) has been a subject of heated debate for decades. As new discoveries come to light, past hypotheses are reevaluated and new theories constructed.Beyer's wave migration theory
The first, and most widely known theory of the prehistoric peopling of the Philippines is that of H. Otley BeyerH. Otley Beyer
Henry Otley Beyer was an American anthropologist, who spent most of his adult life in the Philippines teaching Filipinos and other scholars about Philippine indigenous culture...
, founder of the Anthropology Department of the University of the Philippines. According to Dr. Beyer, the ancestors of the Filipinos came to the islands first via land bridge
Land bridge
A land bridge, in biogeography, is an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, over which animals and plants are able to cross and colonise new lands...
s which would occur during times when the sea level was low, and then later in seagoing vessels such as the balangay
Balangay
The Balangay or Balanghai is the first wooden watercraft ever excavated in Southeast Asia. Also known as the Butuan boat, this artifact is evidence of early Filipino craftsmanship and their seamanship skills during pre-colonial times...
. Thus he differentiated these ancestors as arriving in different "waves of migration", as follows:
-
- "Dawn Man", a cave-man type who was similar to Java manJava ManJava Man is the name given to fossils discovered in 1891 at Trinil - Ngawi Regency on the banks of the Solo River in East Java, Indonesia, one of the first known specimens of Homo erectus...
, Peking ManPeking ManPeking Man , Homo erectus pekinensis, is an example of Homo erectus. A group of fossil specimens was discovered in 1923-27 during excavations at Zhoukoudian near Beijing , China...
, and other Asian homo sapiens of 250,000 years ago. - The aboriginal pygmy group, the NegritoNegritoThe Negrito are a class of several ethnic groups who inhabit isolated parts of Southeast Asia.Their current populations include 12 Andamanese peoples of the Andaman Islands, six Semang peoples of Malaysia, the Mani of Thailand, and the Aeta, Agta, Ati, and 30 other peoples of the Philippines....
s, who arrived between 25,000 and 30,000 years ago. - The sea-faring tool-using IndonesiaIndonesiaIndonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n group who arrived about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago and were the first immigrants to reach the Philippines by sea. - The seafaring, more civilized Malays who brought the Iron ageIron AgeThe Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
culture and were the real colonizers and dominant cultural group in the pre-Hispanic Philippines.
- "Dawn Man", a cave-man type who was similar to Java man
Beyer's theory, while still popular among lay Filipinos, has been generally been disputed by anthropologists and historians. Reasons for doubting it are founded on Beyer's use of 19th century scientific methods of progressive evolution and migratory diffusion as the basis for his hypothesis. These methods have since been proven to be too simple and unreliable to explain the prehistoric peopling of the Philippines.
Objections to the Land Bridges Theory
In February 1976, Fritjof Voss, a German scientist who studied the geology of the PhilippinesGeology of the Philippines
Philippine Geology is a verified and fortified research. The Philippine Sierra Madre Mountains are made the uplifting of the Philippine and Eurasian Plates. The Cordillera Mountains are created by the sliding of the Philippine Plate under the Eurasian Plate...
, questioned the validity of the theory of land bridges. He maintained that the Philippines was never part of mainland Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
. He claimed that it arose from the bottom of the sea and, as the thin Pacific crust moved below it, continued to rise. It continues to rise today. The country lies along great Earth faults that extend to deep submarine trench
Oceanic trench
The oceanic trenches are hemispheric-scale long but narrow topographic depressions of the sea floor. They are also the deepest parts of the ocean floor....
es. The resulting violent earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
s caused what is now the land masses forming the Philippines to rise to the surface of the sea. Dr. Voss also pointed out that when scientific studies were done on the Earth's crust from 1964 to 1967, it was discovered that the 35-kilometer- thick crust underneath China does not reach the Philippines. Thus, the latter could not have been a land bridge to the Asian mainland. The matter of who the first settlers were has not been really resolved. This is being disputed by anthropologists, as well as Professor H. Otley Beyer, who claims that the first inhabitants of the Philippines came from the Malay Peninsula. The Malays now constitute the largest portion of the populace and what Filipinos now have is an Austronesian culture.
Philippine historian William Henry Scott
William Henry Scott (historian)
William Henry Scott was a historian of the Gran Cordillera Central and Prehispanic Philippines. He personally rejected the description anthropologist as applying to himself.-Early life:...
has pointed out that Palawan and the Calamianes Islands are separated from Borneo by water nowhere deeper than 100 meters, that south of a line drawn between Saigon and Brunei does the depth of the South China Sea
South China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around...
nowhere exceeds 100 meters, and that the Strait of Malacca
Strait of Malacca
The Strait of Malacca is a narrow, stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It is named after the Malacca Sultanate that ruled over the archipelago between 1414 to 1511.-Extent:...
reaches 50 meters only at one point. Scott also asserts that the Sulu Archipelago
Sulu Archipelago
The Sulu Archipelago is a chain of islands in the southwestern Philippines. This archipelago is considered to be part of the Moroland by the local rebel independence movement. This island group forms the northern limit of the Celebes Sea....
is not the peak of a submerged mountain range connecting Mindanao and Borneo, but the exposed edge of three small ridges produced by tectonic tilting
Plate tectonics
Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...
of the sea bottom in recent geologic times. According to Scott, it is clear that Palawan and the Calamianes do not stand on a submerged land bridge, but were once a hornlike protuberance on the shoulder of a continent whose southern shoreline used to be the present islands of Java and Borneo. Mindoro and the Calamianes are separated by a channel more than 500 meters deep
Bellwood's Austronesian Diffusion Theory
Peter Bellwood
Peter Bellwood is a Professor of Archaeology at the School of Archaeology and Anthropology of the Australian National University in Canberra...
’s Out-of-Taiwan (OOT) hypothesis, which is based largely on linguistics, hewing very close to Robert Blust
Robert Blust
Robert A. Blust is a prominent linguist in several areas, including historical linguistics, lexicography and ethnology. Blust specializes in the Austronesian languages and has made major contributions to the field of Austronesian linguistics....
’s model of the history of the Austronesian language family, and supplementing it with archeological data.
This model suggests that Between 4500 BCE and 4000 BCE, developments in agricultural technology in the Yunnan Plateau in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
created pressures which drove certain peoples to migrate to Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. These people either already had or began to develop a unique language of their own, now referred to as Proto-Austronesian.
By around 3000 BCE, these groups started differentiating into three or four distinct subcultures, and by 2500 to 1500 BC, one of these groups began migrating southwards towards the Philippines and Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, reaching as far as Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
and the Moluccas by 1500 BCE, forming new cultural groupings and developing unique languages.
By 1500 BC, some of these groups started migrating west, reaching as far as Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
around the first millennium CE. Others migrated east, settling as far as Easter Island
Easter Island
Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...
by the mid-13th century CE, giving the Austronesian language group the distinction of being the most widely distributed language groups in the world at that time, in terms of the geographical span of the homelands of its languages.
According to this theory, the peoples of the Philippines are the descendants of those cultures who remained on the Philippine islands when others moved first southwards, then eastward and westward.
Solheim's Nusantao Maritime Trading and Communication Network (NMTCN) or Island Origin Theory
Wilhelm SolheimWilhelm Solheim
Wilhelm G. Solheim II is an American anthropologist recognized as most senior practitioner of archaeology in Southeast Asia, and as a pioneer in the study of Philippine and Southeast Asian prehistoric archaeology...
's concept of the Nusantao Maritime Trading and Communication Network
Nusantao Maritime Trading and Communication Network
The Nusantao Maritime Trading and Communication Network is a trade and communication network that first appeared in the Asia-Pacific region during its Neolithic age. The concept was first suggested by Wilhelm Solheim, known for being the senior practitioner of archaeology in Southeast Asia today...
(NMTCN), while not strictly a theory regarding the biological ancestors of modern Southeast Asians, does suggest that the patterns of cultural diffusion throughout the Asia-Pacific region are not what would be expected if such cultures were to be explained by simple migration. Where Bellwood based his analysis primarily on linguistic analysis, Solheim's approach was based on artifact findings. On the basis of a careful analysis of artifacts, he suggests the existence of a trade and communication network that first spread in the Asia-Pacific region during its Neolithic age (c.8,000 to 500 BC). According to Solheim's NMTCN theory, this trade network, consisting of both Austronesian and non-Austronesian seafaring peoples, was responsible for the spread of cultural patterns throughout the Asia-Pacific region, not the simple migration proposed by the Out-of-Taiwan hypothesis.
Solheim came up with four geographical divisions delineating the spread of the NMTCN over time, calling these geographical divisions "lobes." Specifically, these were the central, northern, eastern and western lobes.
The central lobe was further divided into two smaller lobes reflecting phases of cultural spread: the Early Central Lobe and the Late Central Lobe. Instead of Austronesian peoples originating from Taiwan, Solheim placed the origins of the early NMTCN peoples in the "Early Central Lobe," which was in eastern coastal Vietnam, at around 9000 BC.
He then suggests the spread of peoples around 5000 BC towards the "Late central lobe", including the Philippines, via island Southeast Asia, rather than from the north as the Taiwan theory suggests. Thus, from the Point of view of the Philippine peoples, the NMTCN is also referred to as the Island Origin Theory.
This "late central lobe" included southern China and Taiwan, which became "the area where Austronesian became the original language family and
Malayo-Polynesian developed." In about 4000 to 3000 BC, these peoples continued spreading east through Northern Luzon to Micronesia to form the Early Eastern Lobe, carrying the Malayo-Polynesian languages with them. These languages would become part of the culture spread by the NMTCN in its expansions Malaysia and western towards Malaysia before 2000 BC, continuing along coastal India
Coastal India
Coastal India is a geo-cultural region in the Indian Subcontinent that spans entire Coastline of India.-Region:Coastal India spans from the south west Indian coastline along the Arabian sea from the coastline of the Gulf of Kutch in its western most corner and stretches across the Gulf of Khambhat,...
and Sri Lanka up to the western coast of Africa and
Madagascar; and over time, further eastward towards its easternmost borders at Easter Island. Thus, as in the case of Bellwood's theory, the Austronesian languages spread eastward and westward from the area around the Philippines. Aside from the matter of the origination of peoples, the difference between the two theories is that Bellwood's theory suggests a linear expansion, while Solheim's suggests something more akin to concentric circles, all overlapping in the geographical area of the late central lobe which includes the Philippines.
Jocano's Local Origins Theory
Another alternative model is that asserted by anthropologist F. Landa Jocano of the University of the PhilippinesUniversity of the Philippines
The ' is the national university of the Philippines. Founded in 1908 through Act No...
, who in 2001 contended that the existing fossil evidence of ancient humans demonstrates that they not only migrated to the Philippines, but also to New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
, Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
, and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. In reference to Beyer's wave model, he points out that there is no definitive way to determine the "race" of the human fossils; the only certain thing is that the discovery of Tabon Man proves that the Philippines was inhabited as early as 21,000 or 22,000 years ago. If this is true, the first inhabitants of the Philippines would not have come from the Malay Peninsula. Instead, Jocano postulates that the present Filipinos are products of the long process of evolution and movement of people. He also adds that this is also true of Indonesians and Malaysians, with none among the three peoples being the dominant carrier of culture. In fact, he suggests that the ancient humans who populated Southeast Asia cannot be categorized under any of these three groups. He thus further suggests that it is not correct to consider Filipino culture as being Malayan in orientation.
2001 Stanford University study
A Stanford UniversityStanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
study conducted during 2001 revealed that Haplogroup O3
Haplogroup O3 (Y-DNA)
In human genetics, Haplogroup O3 is a Y-chromosome haplogroup.-Origins:Haplogroup O3 is a descendant haplogroup of haplogroup O. Some researchers believe that it first appeared in China approximately 10,000 years ago, while others believe it to have had an origin in Southeast Asia approximately...
-M122 (labeled as "Haplogroup L" in this study) is the most common Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup found among Filipinos. This particular haplogroup is also predominant among Chinese, Koreans, and Vietnamese. Another haplogroup, Haplogroup O1a
Haplogroup O1 (Y-DNA)
In human genetics, Haplogroup O1 is a Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. Haplogroup O1 is a descendent branch of the greater Haplogroup O.The great majority of Y-chromosomes within Haplogroup O1 belong to its subgroup O1a .-Origins:...
-M119 (labeled as "Haplogroup H" in this study), is also found among Filipinos. The rates of Haplogroup O1a are highest among the Taiwanese aborigines, and Chamic
Chamic languages
The Chamic languages, also known as Aceh–Chamic and Achinese–Chamic, are a group of ten languages spoken in parts of Cambodia, Vietnam, and Hainan, classified as Malayic languages in the Austronesian language family....
-speaking people. Genetic data found among a sampling of Filipinos may indicate some relation to the Ami tribe of Taiwan.
2008 Leeds University study
A 2008 genetic study showed no evidence of a large-scale Taiwanese migration into the Philippine Islands. A study by Leeds University and published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, showed that mitochondrial DNAMitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria, structures within eukaryotic cells that convert the chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate...
lineages have been evolving within Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) since modern humans arrived approximately 50,000 years ago. Population dispersals occurred at the same time as sea levels rose, which resulted in migrations from the Philippine Islands into Taiwan within the last 10,000 years.
A 2002 China Medical University
China Medical University (ROC)
China Medical University was founded in 1958 as China Medical College . In 2003, the institution renamed itself to its present name...
study indicated that some Filipinos shared genetic chromosome that is found among Asian people
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
, such as Taiwanese aborigines, Indonesians, Thais, and Chinese.
A variety of research study by the University of the Philippines
University of the Philippines
The ' is the national university of the Philippines. Founded in 1908 through Act No...
, genetic chromosome were found in Filipinos which are shared by people from different parts of East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
, and Southeast Asia. The predominant genotype detected was SC, the Southeast Asian genotype. However, only about 50 urine samples were collected for the study, far below the minimum sample size needed to account for credible test results.
These indigenous elements in the Filipino's genetic makeup serve as clues to the patterns of migration throughout Philippine prehistory. After the 16th century, of course, the colonial period saw the influx of genetic influence from Europeans. During the above mentioned study conducted by Stanford University Asia-Pacific Research Center, it was stated that 3.6% of the Philippine population has varying degrees of European ancestry from Spanish, and American colonization.
However, only 28 individuals from the Philippines were genotyped for this study, again a sample size far below the minimum sample size needed to account for credible test results in a population of over 90 million individuals.
5000-2000 BC—Austronesian speakers arrive
Historian William Henry ScottWilliam Henry Scott (historian)
William Henry Scott was a historian of the Gran Cordillera Central and Prehispanic Philippines. He personally rejected the description anthropologist as applying to himself.-Early life:...
has observed that, based on lexicostatistical
Lexicostatistics
Lexicostatistics is an approach to comparative linguistics that involves quantitative comparison of lexical cognates. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a proto-language...
analysis involving seven million word pairs, linguist Isidore Dyen
Isidore Dyen
Isidore Dyen was an American linguist, Professor Emeritus of Malayo-Polynesian and Comparative Linguistics at Yale University...
offered in 1962 two alternative scenarios explaining the origin and spread of Austronesian languages: (a) that they originated in some Pacific island and spread westward to Asia, or (b) that they originated in Taiwan and spread southward. Based on subsequent study of the second alternative, Scott concludes that the Philippine language tree could have been introduced by Austronesian speakers as long ago as 5000 BC, probably from the north, with their descendants expanding throughout the Philippine archipelago and beyond in succeeding millennia, absorbing or replacing sparse populations already present, and their language diversifying into dozens of mutually unintelligible languages which replaced earlier ones. During those millennia, other Austronesian speakers (e.g., the Nesiots mentioned above) entered the Philippines in large enough numbers to leave a linguistic mark but not to replace established languages. Scott suggested that if this scenario is correct all present Philippine languages (except for Sama–Bajaw languages, which probably have more speakers outside the Philippines than within) were produced within the archipelago, none of them being introduced by separate migration, and all of them having more in common with each other than with languages outside of the Philippines.
Early Metal Age (c.500 BC - c.1 AD)
The earliest metal tools in the Philippines were said to have first been used somewhere around 500 BC, and this new technology coincided with considerable changes in the lifestyle of early Filipinos. The new tools brought about a more stable way of life, and created more opportunities for communities to grow, both in terms of size and cultural development.Where communities once consisted of small bands of kinsmen living in campsites, larger villages came about- usually based near water, which made traveling and trading easier. The resulting ease of contact between communities meant that they began to share similar cultural traits, something which had not previously been possible when the communities consisted only of small kinship groups.
Jocano refers to the period between 500 BC and 1 AD as the incipient phase, which for the first time in the artifact record, sees the presence of artifacts that are similar in design from site to site throughout the archipelago. Along with the use of metal tools, this era also saw significant improvement in pottery technology.
100 BC onward
The Philippines is believed by some historians to be the island of ChryseChryse
In Greek mythology, Chryse may refer to:*Persons:**Chryse, a lover of Ares and mother of Phlegyas.**Chryse, nymph of Lemnos**Chryse, daughter of Pallas and consort of Dardanus*Places:...
, the "Golden One," which is the name given by ancient Greek writers in reference to an island rich in gold east of India. Pomponius Mela, Marinos of Tyre and the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentioned this island in 100 BC, and it is basically the equivalent to the Indian Suvarnadvipa, the "Island of Gold." Josephus calls it in Latin Aurea, and equates the island with biblical Ophir, from where the ships of Tyre and Solomon brought back gold and other trade items. The Visayan Islands, particularly Cebu
Cebu
Cebu is a province in the Philippines, consisting of Cebu Island and 167 surrounding islands. It is located to the east of Negros, to the west of Leyte and Bohol islands...
had earlier encounter with the Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
traders in 21 AD.
Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
locates the islands of Chryse east of the Khruses Kersonenson, the "Golden Peninsula," i.e. the Malaya Peninsula. North of Chryse in the Periplus was Thin, which some consider the first European reference to China. Scholars however know that Thin or Gin as in Gintu - Suvarnadvipa originates from Chinese word for gold "jin") Chinese have traded with and settled in Philippines thousands of years before West even knew of this area. In about the 200 BC
200 BC
Year 200 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Maximus and Cotta...
, there arose a practice of using gold eye covers, and then, gold facial orifice covers to adorn the dead resulting in an increase of ancient gold finds.
During the Qin dynasty
Qin Dynasty
The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...
and the Tang dynasty
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
, China was well aware of the golden lands far to the south. The Buddhist pilgrim I-Tsing mentions Chin-Chou, "Isle of Gold" in the archipelago south of China on his way back from India. Medieval Muslims refer to the islands as the Kingdoms of Zabag and Wakwak as rich in gold, referring to the eastern islands of the Malay archipelago, the location of present-day Philippines and Eastern Indonesia.
Thalassocracies and international trade (200 AD onwards)
The emergence of Barangay city-states and trade (200AD-500AD)
Since at least the 3rd century, the indigenous peoples were in contact with other Southeast Asian and East Asian nations.
Fragmented ethnic groups established numerous city-states formed by the assimilation of several small political units known as barangay
Barangay
A barangay is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district or ward...
each headed by a Datu or headman (still in use among non-Hispanic Filipino ethnic groups) and answerable to a king, titled Raja
Raja
Raja is an Indian term for a monarch, or princely ruler of the Kshatriya varna...
h. Even scattered barangays, through the development of inter-island and international trade, became more culturally homogeneous by the 4th century. Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
-Buddhist culture and religion flourished among the noblemen in this era. Many of the barangay were, to varying extents, under the de-jure jurisprudence of one of several neighboring empires, among them the Malay Sri Vijaya, Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
nese Majapahit, Brunei, Melaka empires, although de-facto had established their own independent system of rule. Trading links with Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
, Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Arabia, Japan and the Ryukyu Kingdom
Ryukyu Kingdom
The Ryūkyū Kingdom was an independent kingdom which ruled most of the Ryukyu Islands from the 15th century to the 19th century. The Kings of Ryūkyū unified Okinawa Island and extended the kingdom to the Amami Islands in modern-day Kagoshima Prefecture, and the Sakishima Islands near Taiwan...
flourished during this era. A thalassocracy
Thalassocracy
The term thalassocracy refers to a state with primarily maritime realms—an empire at sea, such as Athens or the Phoenician network of merchant cities...
had thus emerged based on international trade.
Each barangay consisted of about 100 families. Some barangays were big, such as Zubu (Cebu), Butuan, Maktan (Mactan),Mandani (Mandaue), Lalan (Liloan), Irong-Irong (Iloilo), Bigan (Vigan), and Selurong (Manila). Each of these big barangays had a population of more than 2,000.
In the earliest times, the items which were prized by the peoples included jars, which were a symbol of wealth throughout South Asia, and later metal, salt and tobacco. In exchange, the peoples would trade feathers, rhino horn, hornbill beaks, beeswax, birds nests, resin, rattan.2
In the period between the 7th century to the beginning of the 15th century, numerous prosperous centers of trade had emerged, including the Kingdom of Namayan which flourished alongside Manila Bay, Cebu
Cebu
Cebu is a province in the Philippines, consisting of Cebu Island and 167 surrounding islands. It is located to the east of Negros, to the west of Leyte and Bohol islands...
, Iloilo
Iloilo
Iloilo is a province of the Philippines located in the Western Visayas region. Iloilo occupies the southeast portion of Panay Island and is bordered by Antique Province to the west and Capiz Province and the Jintotolo Channel to the north. Just off Iloilo's southeast coast is Guimaras Province,...
, Butuan, the Kingdom of Sanfotsi situated in Pangasinan
Pangasinan
Pangasinan is a province of the Republic of the Philippines. The provincial capital is Lingayen. Pangasinan is located on the west central and peripheral area of the island of Luzon along the Lingayen Gulf, with the total land area being 5,368.82 square kilometers . According to the latest census,...
, the Kingdoms of Zabag and Wak-Wak situated in Pampanga
Pampanga
Pampanga is a province of the Philippines located in the Central Luzon region. Its capital is the City of San Fernando, Pampanga. Pampanga is bordered by the provinces of Bataan and Zambales to the west, Tarlac and Nueva Ecija to the north, and Bulacan to the southeast...
and Aparri (which specialized in trade with Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and the Kingdom of Ryukyu in Okinawa).
Introduction of Metal
The introduction of metal into the Philippines and the resulting changes did not follow the typical pattern. Robert Fox notes, "There is, for example, no real evidence of a "Bronze AgeBronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
" or "Copper-Bronze Age" in the archipelago, a development which occurred in many areas of the world. The transition, as shown by recent excavation, was from stone tools to iron tools."
The earliest use of metal in the Philippines was the use of copper for ornamentation, not tools. Even when copper and bronze tools became common, they were often used side by side with stone tools. Metal only became the dominant material for tools late in this era, leading to a new phase in cultural development.
Bronze tools from the Philippines' early metal age have been encountered in various sites, but they were not widespread. This has been attributed to the lack of a local source of tin, which when combined with copper produces bronze. This lack has led most anthropologists to conclude that bronze items were imported and that those bronze smelting sites which have been found in the Philippines, in Palawan, were for re-smelting and remolding.
Introduction of Iron
When iron was introduced to the Philippines, it became the preferred material for tools and largely ended the use of stone tools. Whether the iron was imported or mined locally is still debated by scholars. Beyer thought that it was mined locally, but others point to the lack of iron smelting artifacts and conclude that the iron tools were probably imported.Metalsmiths from this era had already developed a crude version of modern metallurgical processes, notably the hardening of soft iron through carburization
Carburization
Carburizing, spelled carburising in the UK, is a heat treatment process in which iron or steel is heated in the presence of another material which liberates carbon as it decomposes. Depending on the amount of time and temperature, the affected area can vary in carbon content...
.
Archeological sources
Until very recently, Philippine historians and anthropologists have been limited to the rare artifact discovered since the 19th Century. During the Spanish colonial eraHistory of the Philippines (1521–1898)
This article covers the history of the Philippines from the arrival of European explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, up to the end of Spanish rule in 1898.-Spanish expeditions and conquest:...
, which began in 1521, many artifacts were destroyed or re-used. A good example is the Spanish walled city of Intramuros
Intramuros
Intramuros is the oldest district in the present day city of Manila, the capital of the Republic of the Philippines. Nicknamed the "Walled City", Intramuros is the historic fortified city of Manila, the seat ot the government during the Spanish Colonial Period. Its name in Latin, intramuros,...
in Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
, whose stone bricks were taken from the original city wall of pre-Hispanic Maynila
Kingdom of Maynila
The Kingdom of Seludong , or Maynila, which after colonization became Manila, capital of the Philippines, was one of three major city-states that dominated the area around the upper portion of the Pasig River before the arrival of Spanish colonizers in the 16th century.The early inhabitants of the...
. As new evidence is discovered, old theories are adapted or new ones developed, which has led to numerous and sometimes conflicting theories about the prehistory of the Philippines. In short, the lack of artifacts and other evidence has led to a lack of consensus among prehistory historians.
See also
- Cultural achievements of pre-colonial PhilippinesCultural achievements of pre-colonial PhilippinesThe cultural achievements of pre-colonial Philippines include those covered by prehistory and early history of the Philippines archipelago and its inhabitants, which are the indigenous forebears of today's Filipino people.-Agriculture:...
- History of the Philippines (900-1521)History of the Philippines (900-1521)The known history of the Philippines is marked by the creation of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription , the first written document found in a Philippine language. The inscription itself identifies the date of its creation as the year 900...
- History of the Philippines before Colonization
- History of the Barangay before Hispanization