Prehistoric Philippines: Anthropology of The Filipino People

PREHISTORIC PHILIPPINES
ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE FILIPINO PEOPLE

Part 1
Philippine History & Culture Lectures

By: HANNIBAL F. CARADO
LAND CONNECTIONS DURING THE
PLEISTOCENE PERIOD
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TIMELINE OF PHILIPPINE HISTORY
Pre-historic
400,000 BC — People belonging to the
species Homo Erectus set foot on the
Philippines
50,000 BC — Early humans made stone
tools in the Tabon Cave in Palawan
40,000 BC - Negritos start to settle
Pre-historic
20,000 BC - Tabon Man made stone tools
in the Tabon Cave
4500-300 BC — Multiple Austronesian
migrations from Taiwan
c.3000 BC — Presumed date of the
Angono Petroglyphs
10th-15th centuries
900 AD — End of prehistory. Laguna
Copperplate Inscription, the earliest known
Philippine document, is written in the Manila
area in Kawi script.
c.900 AD — Rise of Indianized Kingdom of
Tondo around Manila Bay.
900s AD — People from Southern Annam
called Orang Dampuan establish trade zones in
Sulu
10th-15th centuries
1001 - Song Shih document records
tributary delegation from the Buddhist
Kingdom of Butuan on 17 March.
1175 - Kingdom of Namayan reaches its
peak.
1240 - Tuan Mash`ika, an Arab, travels
and introduces Islam to Sulu.
10th-15th centuries
1300s — Birth of the Baybayin, Hanunoo,
Tagbanwa, and Buhid scripts from Brahmi.
1380 - Karim Al-Makhdum arrives in Jolo
and builds a Mosque.
1457 AD - Sultanate of Sulu founded by
Sharif Al-Hashim.
16th century
1500 - Rise of Kingdom of Maynila under
the Bolkiah dynasty
1521 - Ferdinand Magellan landed on
Homonhon and Cebu, claiming the
islands for Spain
TABON MAN
Tabon man refers to
fossilized human
remains discovered
on the island of
Palawan in the
Philippines on May
28, 1962 by Dr.
Robert B. Fox.
TABON MAN
These remains, the
fossilized fragments
of a skull and
jawbone of three
individuals, were and
are the earliest
human remains
known in the
Philippines.
TABON MAN
These fragments are
collectively called
"Tabon Man" after
Tabon Cave, the
place where they
were found on the
west coast of
Palawan.
TABON MAN
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.
TABON MAN
Nothing can be
concluded about
Tabon man's physical
appearance from the
recovered skull
fragments except that
he was not a Negrito.
LAGUNA COPPERPLATE
INSCRIPTION
LAGUNA COPPERPLATE
INSCRIPTION
The Laguna Copperplate inscription

(also shortened to LCI) is the earliest
known written document found in the
Philippines.
LAGUNA COPPERPLATE
INSCRIPTION
The plate was found in 1989 by Alfredo

E. Evangelista in Laguna de Bay, in the
metroplex of Manila, Philippines, the LCI
has inscribed on it a date of Saka era 822,
corresponding to April 21, 900 AD.
LAGUNA COPPERPLATE
INSCRIPTION
The Laguna Copperplate Inscription is
highly important in revising the ancient
history of the Philippines, which prior to
the LCI discovery was considered by
some western historians to be culturally
isolated from the rest of Asia, as no
evident pre-Hispanic written records were
found at the time
LAGUNA COPPERPLATE
INSCRIPTION
When the script was translated it was
found that the document dated itself to the
Saka year 822, which in the old Hindu
calendar corresponded to approximately
April 21, 900 A.D.
LAGUNA COPPERPLATE
INSCRIPTION
This meant that the document pre-dated

the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521,
taking the pre-Hispanic written history of
the Philippines to about the same time as
the reference to the Philippines found in
the official Chinese Sung History for the
year 972.
ANGONO PETROGLYPHS
•uploaded by Lloyd Intalan (en:User:LFIntalan). Info:

•Rock carvings (petroglyphs) from the Philippines.
•Photo Lloyd Intalan 2005.
ANGONO PETROGLYPHS
The Angono Petroglyphs is the oldest

known work of art in the Philippines.
There are 127 human and animal figures
engraved on the rockwall dating back to
3000 BC.
ANGONO PETROGLYPHS
These inscriptions clearly show stylized

human figures, frogs and lizards along
with other designs that may have depicted
other interesting figures but erosion may
have caused it to become
indistinguishable.
MODELS OF MIGRATION
WAVE MIGRATION THEORY
The most widely
known theory of the
prehistoric peopling
of the Philippines is
that of H. Otley
Beyer, founder of the
Anthropology
Department of the
University of the
Philippines.
Professor Beyer became
the unquestioned expert on
Philippine prehistory,
exerting early leadership
in the field and influencing
the first generation of
Filipino historians and
anthropologists,
archaeologists,
paleontologists, geologists,
and students the world
over:
According to Dr. Beyer, the ancestors of
the Filipinos came in different "waves of
migration", as follows:
◦ "Dawn Man", a cave-man type who was
similar to Java man, Peking Man, and other
Asian homo sapiens of 250,000 years ago.
◦ The aboriginal pygmy group, the Negritos,
who arrived between 25,000 and 30,000 years
ago via land bridges.
◦ The sea-faring tool-using Indonesian 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 age culture and were the real
colonizers and dominant cultural group in the
pre-Hispanic Philippines.
WAVE OF MIGRATION
THEORY
RECONSIDERED
WAVE OF MIGRATION THEORY
(Reconsidered)
It is too simplistic to be useful in
explaining complex problem of cultural
development
It is quite unrealistic to assume that the
physical characteristics of prehistoric
migrating people can be correlated with
specific cultural developments
(Reconsidered)
Itis doubtful whether the ancient peoples
always arrive in periodic time sequences
and with foreknowledge of their
destination by the term “immigration.”
(Reconsidered)
Itis quite difficult to accept that small
boatloads of immigrants coming at certain
periodic time sequences, would be
capable of maintaining large-scale
community patterns in a new land under
pioneer conditions.
(Reconsidered)
It impresses an orientation that all cultural
traits as well as the physical types of our
ancestors were brought into the
archipelago ready-made.
THE AUSTRONESIANS
THE AUSTRONESIANS
Another, more contemporary theory based on
the study of the evolution of languages
suggests that starting 4000-2000 BC
Austronesian groups descended from Yunnan
Plateau in China and settled in what is now the
Philippines by sailing using balangays or by
traversing land bridges coming from Taiwan.
THE AUSTRONESIANS
Most of these Austronesians primarily
used the Philippines as a pit-stop to the
outlying Pacific islands or to the
Indonesian archipelago further south.
Those who were left behind became the
ancestors of the present-day Filipinos.
THE AUSTRONESIANS
The Cagayan valley of northern Luzon
contains large stone tools as evidence for
the hunters of the big game of the time:
the elephant-like stegodon, rhinoceros,
crocodile, tortoise, pig and deer. The
Austronesians pushed the Negritos to the
mountains, while they occupied the fertile
coastal plains.
THE AUSTRONESIANS
RECONSIDERED
THE AUSTRONESIANS
(Reconsidered)
How big Austronesian group was there to
be able to replicate their home culture in a
frontier area?
How do we recognize a tool shape as
Austronesian and not part of local
response to local needs?
THE AUSTRONESIANS
(Reconsidered)
What were the languages of indigenous
groups before their contacts with
Austronesians?
When did the language break take place?
What happened to the original language?
Linguistic drift is not an overnight
phenomenon but a slow process.
THE AUSTRONESIANS
(Reconsidered)
Itis doubtful if we can attribute all the
local developments in our country to the
Austronesians. It cancels out our
ancestors intellectual capability to create
new ideas in response to local needs.
THE AUSTRONESIANS
(Reconsidered)
Unlike in later years, trade items carry the
brand name of the manufacturer. Their
origin is known and their material can be
readily identified. This is not the case
with the so-called Austronesians.
THE AUSTRONESIANS
(Reconsidered)
How do we date a word?
Glottochronology did not work. Many
modern linguists have given it up.
THE AUSTRONESIANS
(F. Landa Jocano)
The first inhabitants of the Philippines did
not come from the Malay Peninsula.
Jocano believes that the present Filipinos
are products of the long process of
evolution and movement of people.
This not only holds true for Filipinos, but
for the Indonesians and the Malays of
Malaysia, as well. No group among the
three is culturally or racially dominant.
THE AUSTRONESIANS
(F. Landa Jocano)
Hence, Jocano says that it is not correct to
attribute the Filipino culture as being
Malayan in orientation.
According to Jocano's findings, the people
of the prehistoric islands of Southeast Asia
were of the same population as the
combination of human evolution that
occurred in the islands of Southeast Asia
about 1.9 million years ago.
References:
F. Landa Jocano, Filipino Prehistory:
Rediscovering Precolonial Heritage,
PUNLAD Research House, Inc., Quezon
City, 1998

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What are some of the earliest human remains found in the Philippines?

What was the earliest known Philippine document?

PREHISTORIC PHILIPPINES

ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE FILIPINO PEOPLE

Philippine History & Culture Lectures

The Laguna Copperplate inscription

The plate was found in 1989 by Alfredo

This meant that the document pre-dated

•uploaded by Lloyd Intalan (en:User:LFIntalan). Info:

The Angono Petroglyphs is the oldest

These inscriptions clearly show stylized

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