Philippine Pre-Historic Influences

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 cultures in the 4th century, continuing on with the
gradual widening of trade until 900 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 Jocano 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 Aetas, 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.
 Callao Man (c. 41,000 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. The find was of 67,000
year old remains that predate 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 Man 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)

The Skull of Tabon Man

Fossilized fragments of a skull and jawbone of three individuals had been discovered on May
28, 1962 by Dr. Robert B. Fox, an American anthropologist of the National Museum. 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 toolsand 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 BC. (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 guanoduring 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 BC. 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 have 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.

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.

The emergence of Barangay city-states and trade (200-500)

A Tagalog couple of the Maharlika nobility caste depicted in the Boxer Codex of the 16th
Century.

Further information: Barangay (pre-colonial)

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 Rajah. 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,Javanese 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.

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).

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 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

Iron age finds in Philippines also point to the existence of trade between Tamil Nadu and the
Philippine Islands during the ninth and tenth centuries B.C. 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.

PRE-HISTORIC TIMELINE

25,000 B.C. Ancient Negroid people immigrate to the Philippines over a land bridge then still
connecting the archipelago with the Asian mainland. They are food gatherers and hunters, and the
forefathers of today'sNegritos. These people use bows and arrows and stone made implements.
They live in caves.

5,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C. The "New Stone Age". Sea faring Malays from what is today
Indonesia come to the archipelago. These new settlers bring with them polished stone tools, boat
building, bark and animal skin cloth making, pottery, rice planting, the process of cooking food in
bamboo tubes, the techniques of making fire by rubbing two sticks together. The Negritos begin
to move out of caves and settle in a scattered manner along the coasts and rivers.

3,000 B.C. to 1,000 B.C. A second wave of Malay immigrants arrives in the Philippines by
sea. Each of their ships accommodated one small clan. Such a ship load of people was called
a barangay, a term which was revived by Marcos to describe an organized neighborhood of more
than 1000 people. The immigrants in the second wave were ancestors of
today's Ifugao, Bontoc, Mangyans, and other primitive tribes. They introduced the animist
religion and jar burial in The Country . Earliest metal tools of the period are made of copper,
bronze, iron and gold.

200 B.C. More civilized Malays in large numbers migrate to the Philippines. They are the
racial stock of the majority of today's Philippine populace.

200 B.C. to 1000 A.D. In the Iron Age beginns artistry in the Philippines in all aspects of life
and work. Earrings, beads, pendants and bangles made of clay, stone and shells are developed.
Body tattooing is used as well as filing and blackening teeth which were then wrapped with gold
foil or studded with gold fillings.

1,000 A.D. to 1,200 A.D. In the Porcelain Age trading begins extensively with Arabia, India,
Annan, China and later with the Europeans. Porcelains from different Chinese dynasties are
imported.

1200 to 1300. Migrants from Borneo spread into the Southern Philippines.

1300 to 1400. The Hindu empire of Majapahit on Java gains influence over parts of the
islands.
 1380. Islam reaches the Southern Philippines via Borneo. In islamic areas,slavery is in the
following years widely replacing head-hunting. Would be head-hunting victims become slaves
that are bartered to Chinese traders. A new social order is started made up of freemen,
commoners, slaves and bonded servants, all under the leadership of a datu.

1450. The Muslim sultanate of Jolo is established on the islands between Borneo and
Mindanao.

1475. The Muslim sultanate of Maguindanao is founded on Mindanao. Islam spreads

throughout the archipelago and even reaches central Luzon.