Prehistory of the Philippines
Stone-Age—humans arrive (30000 BC)
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. Heading
that department for 40 years, 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:
1. "Dawn Man", a cave-man type who was similar to Java man, Peking Man, and other
Asian homo sapiens of 250,000 years ago.
2. The aboriginal pygmy group, the Negritos, who arrived between 25,000 and 30,000
years ago via land bridges.
3. 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.
4. 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.
Unfortunately, there is no definite evidence, archaeological or historical, to support this
"migration theory". On the contrary, there are sufficient reasons for doubting it, including the
following:
1. Beyer used the 19th century scientific methods of progressive evolution and
migratory diffusion as the basis for his hypothesis. These methods have now been
proven to be too simple and unreliable to explain the prehistoric peopling of the
Philippines.
2. The empirical archaeological data for the theory was based on surface finds and mere
conjecture, with much imagination and unproven data included.
3. Later findings contradicted the migration theory and the existence of the "Dawn Man"
postulated by Beyer.
4. Undue credit is given to Malays as the original settlers of the lowland regions and the
dominant cultural transmitter.
The earliest human remains known in the Philippines are the 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 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 akind of
Stone Age factory, with both finished stone flake tools 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. (InMindanao, 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. Jar burials found in a dozen or more Philippine provinces include such a range of cultural
variations that it is illogical to attribute their presence to any such event as a migration of "jar
burial people."
Southeast Asia, as seen on the display globe at the Field Museum of Natural History,Chicago, Illinois
About 30,000 years ago, 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.
3000 BC onward
After the last Ice Age (which ended about 10,000 years ago), the sea level rose an
estimated 35m (110 feet), which cut the land bridges, filling the shallow seas north ofBorneo. Thus
the only method of migration left was the dugout proa, built by felling trees and hollowing them
out with adzes. An image of this method of travel can be seen on the Manunggul Jar, a National
Treasure of the Philippines.
About 3000 BC, a loose confederation of peoples known as 'Nesiots', from what today is
Indonesia, came to the Philippines. They were to become the ancestors of the present-day Luzon
and Mindanao hill tribes. There were two waves of successive Nesiot immigration. The first wave
saw a people who have light complexions, aquiline noses, thin lips, and deep-set eyes. The second
wave of migration were shorter and heavier in physique, having darker complexion, thick lips,
large noses, and heavy jaws. Those of the second wave of migration had epics and folk stories
mixed with superstitions. From these people came the Luzon hill tribes.
5000-2000 BC—Austronesian speakers arrive
Historian William Henry Scott has observed that, based onlexicostatistical 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 millenia, absorbing or replacing sparse populations already present, and their
language diversifying into dozens of mutually unintelligible languages which replaced earlier ones.
During those millenia, 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.
100 BC onward
The Philippines is believed by some historians to be the island of Chryse, 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 IndianSuvarnadvipa, 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.
More than a millennium later, the popularity of dental gold to decorate the teeth
significantly increased the amount of gold found at archaeological sites. When the Spanish came
they discovered an abundance of gold used among the people of the Philippine islands. The
Portuguese explorer Pedro Fidalgo in 1545 found gold so abundant on Luzon the inhabitants were
willing to trade two pezoes of gold for one pezo of silver. When the Portuguese first arrived, most
of the gold traded into Brunei came from Luzon. That island was known as Lusung Dao or "Luzon
Island" to the Chinese who also traded for gold in this region.
History of the Philippines (900-1521)
Thalassocracies and international trade (200AD - 1521)
The emergence of Barangay city-states and trade (200AD-500AD)
A Tagalog couple of the Maharlikanobility caste depicted in the Boxer Codex of the 16th Century.
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 Datuor 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 Seluron (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 ofNamayan 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).
The growth of Literature and Hindu-Buddhist culture (900AD -
1380)
Laguna Copperplate Inscription (circa 900 AD)
With the growth of a thalassocratic civilization, came the growth of literature. The Laguna
Copperplate Inscription dated 900 AD (Saka Era year 822) is considered to be the end of prehistory
as far as documents are concerned. It was found in the Laguna de Bay ofManila. In 1989, the
National Museum acquired it. The inscription forgives the descendants of Namwaran from a debt of
926.4 grams ofgold, and is granted by the chief of Tondo (an area in Manila) and the authorities
of Paila, Binwangan and Pulilan, which are all locations in Luzon. The words are a mixture
of Sanskrit, Old Malay, Old Javanese and Old Tagalog. The subject matter proves the highly
developed society that existed in the Philippines before the Spanish colonization, as well as
refuting earlier claims of the Philippines being a cultural isolate in Asia; the references to the Chief
of Medan in Indonesia claim the cultural and trade links with various other affiliated empires and
territories in other parts of the Malay Archipelago., particularly the Srivijaya empire.
(SeeNusantara)[not in citation given].
Society
By the 9th century, a highly developed society had already established several hierarchies
with set professions: The Datu or ruling class, the Maharlika or noblemen, the Timawa or freemen,
and the dependent class which is divided into two, the Aliping Namamahay(Slave) and Aliping
Saguiguilid (Serfs).
The Baybayin
The emergence of Baybayin script from Classical Kawi script (1200
onwards)
One example of pre-Spanish Philippine script on a burial jar, derived from Brahmi survives,
as most of the writing was done on perishable bamboo or leaves; an earthenware burial jar dated
13th century or 14th century with script was found in Batangas. This script is called
in Tagalog Baybayin orAlibata.
Kawi Script
Kawi script was in the Philippines already before 900AD and there were also 10century
Butuan Kawi relics. 900AD relics found in Laguna was an important things for the Philippine
history.
The growth of Islamic Sultanates (1380 - 1521)
In 1380, Makhdum Karim, the first Islamic missionary to the Philippines brought Islam to the
Archipelago. Subsequent visits of Arab, Malay and Javanese missionaries helped strengthen the
Islamic faith of the Filipinos, most of whom (except for those in the south) would later become
Christian under the Spanish colonization. The Sultanate of Sulu, the largest Islamic Kingdom
of South East Asiaand the Malay Archipelago, encompassed parts of Malaysia and the Philippines.
The royal house of the Sultanate claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad.
Around 1405, the year that the war over succession ended in the Majapahit
Empire, Sufi traders introduced Islam into the Hindu-Malayan empires and for about the next
century the southern half of Luzon and the islands south of it were subject to the various Muslim
sultanates of Borneo. During this period, the Japanese established a trading post at Aparri and
maintained a loose sway over northern Luzon.
Scientific claims
Philippine history and anthropologists had only until very recently been limited to the rare
artifacts that were discovered after the Spanish period, which had seen many artifacts from the
pre-Hispanic era destroyed or reconverted. A good example of which is the Spanish walled city
of Intramuros in Manila, whose stone bricks were ripped from the original fortified city wall (known
in Malay/Tagalog as a "Kota") of pre-Hispanic Maynila. This can explain the development of
theories over the 20th century.
In February 1976, Fritjof Voss, a German scientist who studied the geology 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 trenches. The resulting
violent earthquakes 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.
Anthropologist F. Landa Jocano of the University of the Philippines contends that what fossil
evidence of ancient men show is that they not only migrated to the Philippines, but also to New
Guinea,Borneo, and Australia. He says that there is no way of determining if they
were Negritoes at all. However, what is sure is that there is evidence the Philippines was inhabited
as early as 21,000 or 22,000 years ago. In 1962, a skull cap and a portion of a jaw, presumed to be
those of a human being, were found in a Tabon Cave in Palawan Province. The discovery may show
that man came earlier to the Philippines than to the Malay Peninsula. If this is true, the first
inhabitants of the Philippines did not come from the Malay Peninsula. Jocano further 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. 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. The
claimed evidence for this is fossil material found in different parts of the region and the
movements of other people from the Asian mainland during historic times. He states that these
ancient men cannot be categorized under any of the historically identified ethnic groups (Malays,
Indonesians, kayumangging Filipinos) of today. Some Filipino ethnic groups were Hindu-Buddhist
pagans while others were Muslims. The Hindu-Buddhist pagans were converted to Christianity by
the Spaniards. The Americans later arrived and introduced further cultural changes, which made
the Filipinos more and more different from the peoples of other Southeast Asian countries.
Studies have shown that in the period since the last ice age, sea levels have risen about
120 meters. Philippine historian William Henry Scott has pointed out that Palawan and the
Calamianes Islands are separated from Borneo by water with an average depth of 40 meters and
nowhere deeper than 100 meters, that south of a line drawn between Saigon and Brunei the depth
of the South China Sea does not exceed 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 techtonic tilting of the sea bottom in recent geologic times. Scott also
points out that Mindoro and theCalamianes are separated by a channel more than 500 meters
deep, saying that 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.
