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    2.2 - Tabon Caves

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    Trish
    The document summarizes information from two sources about Tabon Man fossils excavated from Tabon Cave in Palawan, Philippines: 1. Fossil fragments from at least three individuals, including a skull fragment, were excavated in 1962 and dated to between 22,000-24,000 years ago. The fossils are identified as Homo sapiens. 2. Further excavations found tools and artifacts across four levels of the cave, with charcoal dated to 7,000 BC, 20,000 BC, 28,000 BC, and an earlier level over 45,000 years ago. Physical anthropologists identify the fossils as modern humans, with the mandible resembling Australian Aboriginals.

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    2.2 - Tabon Caves

    Uploaded by

    Trish
    46 views1 page
    The document summarizes information from two sources about Tabon Man fossils excavated from Tabon Cave in Palawan, Philippines: 1. Fossil fragments from at least three individuals, including a skull fragment, were excavated in 1962 and dated to between 22,000-24,000 years ago. The fossils are identified as Homo sapiens. 2. Further excavations found tools and artifacts across four levels of the cave, with charcoal dated to 7,000 BC, 20,000 BC, 28,000 BC, and an earlier level over 45,000 years ago. Physical anthropologists identify the fossils as modern humans, with the mandible resembling Australian Aboriginals.

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    2.2- TABON CAVES

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    The document summarizes information from two sources about Tabon Man fossils excavated from Tabon Cave in Palawan, Philippines: 1. Fossil fragments from at least three individuals, including a skull fragment, were excavated in 1962 and dated to between 22,000-24,000 years ago. The fossils are identified as Homo sapiens. 2. Further excavations found tools and artifacts across four levels of the cave, with charcoal dated to 7,000 BC, 20,000 BC, 28,000 BC, and an earlier level over 45,000 years ago. Physical anthropologists identify the fossils as modern humans, with the mandible resembling Australian Aboriginals.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    46 views1 page

    2.2 - Tabon Caves

    Uploaded by

    Trish
    The document summarizes information from two sources about Tabon Man fossils excavated from Tabon Cave in Palawan, Philippines: 1. Fossil fragments from at least three individuals, including a skull fragment, were excavated in 1962 and dated to between 22,000-24,000 years ago. The fossils are identified as Homo sapiens. 2. Further excavations found tools and artifacts across four levels of the cave, with charcoal dated to 7,000 BC, 20,000 BC, 28,000 BC, and an earlier level over 45,000 years ago. Physical anthropologists identify the fossils as modern humans, with the mandible resembling Australian Aboriginals.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 1

    TABON CAVES

    1.5. Comparing Sources: A. Robert Fox,” The Tabon Caves”, Manila: National
    Museum: 1970.

    Tabon Man- during the initial excavations of the Tabon cave, June and July 1962, the
    scattered fossil bones of at least three individuals were excavated, including a large fragment
    of a frontal bone with the brows and portions of the nasal bones. These fossil bones were
    recovered towards the rear of the cave along the left wall. Unfortunately, the area in which the
    fossil human bones were recovered had been disturbed by Megapode birds. It was not possible
    in 1962 to establish the association of thes bones with a specific flake assemblage. Although
    they were provisionally related to either Flake Assemblage II or III. Subsequent excavations in
    the same area mow strongly suggest that the fossil human bones were associated with Flake
    Assemblage III for only the flakes of this assemblage have been found to date in this area of
    the cave. The available date would suggest that Tabon Man may be dated from 22,000 to
    24,000 years. Ago. But only further excavations in the cave and chemical analysis of human
    and animal bones from disturbed and undisturbed levels in the cave will define the exact age of
    the human fossils. The fossil bones are those of Homo sapiens. These will form a separate
    study by a specialist which will be inciuded in the final site report for Tabon Cave. It is
    important, however, because of a recent publication (Scott, 1969), that a preliminary study of
    the fossil bones of Tabon Man shows that it is above average in skull dimensions when
    compared to the modern Filipino. There is no evidence that Tabon Man was “…a less brainy
    individual…” *Scott (1969) 36+. Moreover, Scott’s study include many misstatements about the
    Tabon Caves, always the problem when writers work from “conversations.”

    B. William Henry Scott, “Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine
    History.” (1984)

    Excerpts:

    Tabon Man – The earliest human skull remains known in the Philippines are the
    fossilized fragments of a skullcap and jawbone of three individuals who 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 little Stone Age factory: both finshed tools and waste cores and flakes
    have been found at four different levels in the main chamber. Charcoal left from cooking fires
    has been recovered from three of thsre assemblages and dated by C-14 to roughly 7,000 B.C.,
    20, 000 B.C., and 28, 000 B.C. with an earlier level lying so far below these that it must
    represent Upper Pleistocene dates like 45 or 50,000 years ago…. Physical anthropologists who
    have examined the Tabon skullcap are agreed that it belonged to modern man-- that is, Homo
    sapiens as distinguished from those mid-Pleistocene species nowadays called Homo erectus.
    Two experts have given the further opinion that the mandible is “Australian” in physical type,
    and that the skullcap measurements are mostly nearly like those of Ainus and Tasmanians.
    What this basically means is 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 earlies peoples and absorbed earlier peoples to produce the modern Malay,
    Indonesian, Filipino, and Pacific peoples popularly- and- uscientifically- called, “the brown
    race,” Tabon man presumably belonged to one of those earlier peoples, but,… except one
    thing: Tabon man was not a Negrito.

    (p.28) … All skulls and teeth that have been studied professionally—with the possible
    exception of the three Tabon man fragments-- display the diagnostic features of the physical
    type anthropologists call “Mongoloid” or “Southern Mongoloid”; none displayed any racial
    variations, and none belonged to pygmy Negritos.

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