Pre- Colonial Period in the Philippines

(PRE – 1500s)
*ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCES OF HUMAN EXISTENCE IN THE PHILIPPINES*
 The Yawning Jarlet of Leta-Leta Cave
- The earliest Pot recovered in the country.
- A distinct rim that resembles a shouting or yawning person.
- Discovered by Dr. Robert Fox in Leta-Leta Cave, northern Palawan in
1965, associated with the Late Neolithic period (approximately 1000 to
1500 BC).

 The Manunggul Jar

- Discovered in a cave at Lipuun Point, Quezon, Palawan in March 1964
by a team of workers from US Peace Corps headed by Victor Decalan
and Hans Kasten.
- A secondary burial jar that has existed since the late Neolithic Period.
- Made from clay and 51.5cm wide and 66.5 cm high its embossed,
curved designs especially those at the upper portion of the jar.

 The Callao Man

- Shorter than 4 feet
- (2007) Fossils of TCM found in a cave located in Penablanca, Cagayan
- Archaeologist Armand Salvador Mijares discovered the fossils.

 The Philippine Island of Luzon has kept biological artifacts safe for more
than 50,000 years, found under the rock floor of the Callao Cave.

 The Laguna Copperplate Inscription (LCI)

- Discovered in 1986 near the mouth of Lumbang River, the Laguna
Copper Plate Inscription or LCI is the earliest historical document in
the country.

 Alfredo Evangelista (Filipino Anthropologist)

- Finds included the oldest known primary burial site in Philippines.
- Uncovered the LCI and discovered inside of some boat burial coffins
excavated on Baton Island.
- Former director of Anthropology Division of the National Museum of
the Philippines.

 Antoon Postma (Dutch Anthropologist)

- (1990) Dutch Expert in Ancient Philippine Scripts and Mangyan Writing
- Translated the document of LCI (Hindu, English, Tagalog)
 Important Facts
- Earliest dated document discovered from 900 A.D., long before the
Spanish arrived – LCI proved civilization was colonized before textbook
dates.
- Showed economic and political systems – pardoned death and had a
money system of weights and measures.
- Mixed Languages showed that the island wasn’t isolated (Sanskrit, Old
Tagalog, Javanese, Old Malay).
- Indianization: sharing of other cultures in the Philippines Islands.
Evidence of Buddhism and Hinduism influences as earlier religions.

 The Bulinao Skull

- One of the 67 skulls with the gold ornaments on their teeth
- Preserved for more than 500 years.
- Belonged to a person who lived in the 1400s or the last century before
the Spanish occupation.
- The process of pamamumusad is very painful that only noble warriors
would endure during the procedure of smelting pieces of gold and
putting the smelted gold on the teeth one by one until it forms a fish
scale pattern. A fitting induction rite for a warrior. The gold scales
were observed to be on the buccal surface of the upper and lower
incisor and canine teeth.

 The Limestone Tombs of Mt. Kamhantik

- In 2012, researchers from the National Museum of the Philippines
unearthed the remains of a village tomb that was eventually dated
back to between 890 and 1030 AD.
- Located in the Buenavista Protected landscape in Quezon.
- The archaeological site that contains the tombs is part of a 690-acre
forest that was declared by the Philippines government in 1998 to be a
protected area. According to the archaeologists, it is particular
historical importance as they’re the first real evidence that ancient
Filipinos did in fact have complex and advanced burial customs – a
concept that has previously been disputed.

 Oton Death Mask

- The practice of putting a death mask on the deceased was a custom in
many ancient societies.
- Filipinos from Pre-Hispanic time perform this rite of honoring the dead
to protect the body from Bad spirits.
- It is not elaborate, ornate and lifelike unlike other death masks from
western societies.
 - A more archaic and bronze age design in it. Filipino Archaeologists led
by F. Landa Jocano and Alfredo Evangelista found the most popular in
Oton, Panay Island in Western Visayas.
- (1960’s and 70’s) Several were found in several island Western Visaya
and Northern MMindanao.
- Found along with Ming Dynasty Porcelain.
- The process of making Oton Death mask is different to the death mask
from western civilization.
- Made manually and only covers the eyes and the nasal area of the
person instead of smelting Gold all around the face of dead.
- Not only evidence of a rich culture even before the colonizers came to
Philippines, but it is also a symbol of a culture long lost in time that is
fortunately being restored and venerated by the locals.

 The 700,000-year-old Rhino Hunting Tools

- Researchers found this site on the Philippine Island of Luzon where
unknown hominins butchered a rhinoceros.
- To avoid damaging the bones, the team dug them up with only
bamboo sticks.
- The eye-popping artifacts were abandoned on a river floodplain on the
island of Luzon beside the butchered carcass of a rhinoceros.
- Two of the rhino’s limb bones are smashed in, as if someone was
trying to harvest and eat the marrow inside.
- Cut marks behind by stone blades crisscross the rhino’s ribs and ankle.
- The carved bones are most likely between 631,000 and 777,000 years
old with researchers' best estimate coming in around 709,00 years old.

 The Agono Petroglyphs

- Discovered in 1965, believed to be the oldest known artworks in the
Philippines.
- The third Millennium B.C., They are a collection of 127 figural cravings
engraved on the wall of a shadow cave of volcanic tuff.
- (1973) they were declared a national cultural treasure and (1985)
were listed on the world inventory of rock art.
- It is the oldest surviving examples of rock engravings in Asia and are
believed to be the oldest in Philippines.
- The surviving cravings are a unique collection at this distant period of
Philippine History.

 The Calatagan Ritual Pot

- A national cultural treasure dated back to the 14th and 16th centuries.
- Discovered by diggers in an archaeological site in Calatagan, Batangas
in 1958 and donated to the national museum in 1961.
- 12.cm high and 20.2cm at its widest and weighing 872 grams.
 - Considered as the country’s oldest cultural artifact with pre- hispanic
writing.
- Distinct because of the mysterious ancient symbols on its shoulder.
- (1960’s) Sculpture Guillermo Tolentino suggests his output a dead-
mother, was dismissed by the scientific community.
- (2008) Dr. Rolando O. Borrinaga of UP Manila came up with reliable
translation, concluded that the inscription was written in the old
Bisayan language.
- The post was used as a “Native incense burner for the pag-ulî (return)
rite to retrieve the soul of a moribund person during the pre-Hispanic
era.”.

 The Golden Tara of Agusan

- The Golden Tara is a gold statue of a Hindu-Malayan deity discovered
in 1917 in Esperanza, Agusan del Sur, in southern Philippines.
- Weighing about four pounds, the 21-karat gold statue depicts a
woman deity sitting cross-legged, ornamented with a headdress and
various accoutrements in the arms and legs. It was dated to the early
13th century, and is proof that ancient Filipinos have extensive contact
with the Hindu culture way back.
- Discovered by a Manobo woman, the statue passed from one owner to
another, until it was brought to the Field Museum in 1922.
- The Golden Tara is now part of the Grainger Halls of Gems exhibit of
the Field Museum. It is described as “one of the most important
discoveries in the history of Philippine archaeology,” but it is sad to
know that one important part of the country’s rich history and heritage
is in a foreign land.

 Batanes Castle
- In 1994, Dr. Eusebio Dizon, deputy director of the Archeology Division
of the National Museum, went to Batanes with a team of experts for
an extensive archaeological project. One of their surprising discoveries
was a triangular-shaped hill at Savidug, a municipality in Sabtang.
- They learned that this was one of four high rocky formations locally
known as ijang.
- Interestingly, the Savidug Idjang also shares similarities with the
Okinawan castles called gusuku, located in the Ryukyu Islands
between Japan and Taiwan.
- The artifacts found in Savidug such as 12 th-century Chinese beads and
Sung-type ceramics are also proof that the idjang‘s establishment
coincided with the foundation of the Okinawan castles beginning c. AD
1200.
 Butuan “Mother Boat”
- In 2012, the remains of what archaeologists believe to be the biggest
balangay (plank boat) in Philippine history was recovered in Butuan
City. Estimated to be around 800 years old, the newly-discovered
Butuan “mother boat” may be centuries older than the European ships
that landed in the archipelago in the 16 th century, and even predates
Magellan’s arrival and death in 1521.
- “mother boat”–estimated to be at least 25 meters long–is believed to
be the main “safekeeping” boat where trade goods and supplies were
stored. On the other hand, the smaller balangays–similar to the eight
previously-recovered Butuan boats–might have functioned as mere
support vessels.

 The Death Blanket of Bonton, Romblon

- Also known as “ikat” the piece of burial cloth is said to be the oldest
existing cloth in the country and possibly the oldest wrap “ikat” textile
in Southeast Asia.
- The Bonton burial cloth is another National Cultural Treasure, is
actually just a piece of the blanket used by Filipinos in the 13 th to 14th
centuries to wrap a corpse.
- It was found in the 1960s inside the Guyangan Cave in Banton,
Romblon along with other artifacts such as Ming period blue and white
ceramics.

 Maitum Anthropomorphic
- The Maitum anthropomorphic burial jars are earthenware secondary
burial vessels discovered in 1991 bby the National Museum of the
Philippines archeological team in Ayub Cave, Barangay Pinol, Maitum,
Sarangani Province, Mindanai, Philippine.
- The jars are anthropomorphic; characterized by a design that suggests
human figures with complete or partial facial features of the first
inhabitants of mindanao.
- This type of burial jar is remarkably unique and intriguing because
they have not been found elsewhere in Southeast Asia. From Vietnam,
Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, and Indonesia gained
interest in this initial find, and several archaeological – either
government or privately sponsored – excavations have been conducted
to recover these artifacts.
- These jars have characteristics that belong to the Developed Metal Age
Period in the Philippines [calibrated date of 190 BC to 500 AD].

 The Flying Elephant of Lena Shoal

- Another National Cultural Treasure, this blue and white dish with a
flying elephant design is one of only two pieces ever recovered in the
 world. It was retrieved from the Lena Shoal wreck site in Palawan in
1997 through an underwater exploration project initiated by the Far
Eastern Foundation for Nautical Archaeology (FEFNA) and the National
Museum.

*Pre - Colonial Writing System in the Philippines*

 Alibata
- The first Filipino Alphabet

 Baybayin
- Baybayin is one of the pre colonial writing systems used by early
Filipinos. The term “baybayin” comes from the Tagalog root word
baybay, which means “to spell.” The name for the Pre-Hispanic Filipino
script first appeared in “Vocabulario de Lengua Tagala,” one of the
earliest Philippine language dictionaries published.
- It was erroneously called "alibata" in the past. The term alibata was
coined by Paul Rodriguez Versoza based on the arrangement of the
Arabic alphabet alif, ba, ta.
- When the Spaniards arrived in the Philippine archipelago, they
observed that most of the natives, not just the elite, could read and
write. The script was used not only to record but also to write poetry,
incantations, and letters.
- Baybayin is an alpha-syllabic script, meaning certain characters in
baybayin can stand for either a single consonant or vowel, while some
characters stand for an entire syllable.
- According to Antonio de Morga’s Events in the Philippine Islands
(1609), and the Doctrina Christiana, a catechism and one of the first
books ever printed in the Philippines (1593), baybayin had 3 alphabet
characters representing vowels (A, E/I, and O/U), while there were 14
characters representing syllables that begin with the consonants (B,
C/K, D/R, G, H, L, M, N, NG, P, S, T, W, and Y).
- The Spanish friars studied Baybayin and used it to teach the Catholic
religion to Filipinos. Filipinos stopped using Baybayin when the
Spaniards introduced their own alphabet and system of writing.
- The Hanunoo and Buhid of Mangyan in Mindoro and the Tagbanua and
Pala’wan of Palawan are among the last few indigenous groups in the
country who use a writing system similar to the Baybayin. The
Mangyan script, together with the Northern-Buhid in Mindoro and the
Palawan script, have been declared by the National Museum as
National Cultural Treasures in 1997.
 *Austronesian Theories and Evidences*
 Wilheilm Solheim II
- He developed Nusantao Maritime Trading and Communication Network
Hypothesis or NMTCN.
- Nusa = South, Tao = Man/People. Nusantao = People from the south
islands.
- Heine-Geldern asserted that, between 2,000 and 1,500 BC, early
Austronesian speakers would have moved south toward the Malay
Peninsula before crossing the strait that separates it from Borneo.
From Borneo, they would have gotten access to the Philippines,
possibly through Palawan, before spreading toward Formosa and
eventually reaching Japan.

 Theory by Archeologist William Meacham (1988)

- This asserts that the homeland for Austronesian speakers lies within a
wide triangle called ‘Austronesia’.
- Sumatra (Southwest) → Formosa (North) → Lesser Sunda Islands
(Southeast).

 Theory by Linguists Thomas and Healey 1962 LLamzon 1977

- Based on lexico-statistical and glotto-chronological analyses, some
linguists,assert that, from Southeastern China, Austronesian speakers
would have moved southward to Indochina (around 2,000 BC) before
spreading westward to the Malay Peninsula and Eastward to Borneo
around 1,100 BC. Then, the Borneo group would have branched into
two sub-groups that would have reached the Philippine archipelago
around 700 years BC, one through Mindanao and the second through
Palawan and Mindoro (Figure 8). Grace (1964), who quietly supports
this theory, claims that Austronesian speakers reached the Philippines
as early as 1,500 BC or shortly thereafter.

 Theory by Philippine Anthropologist Arsenio Manuel

- (1966, 1991, 1994) defends a multiple route hypothesis. It is actually
noteworthy that this scholar locates the homeland of Austronesian
speakers a little bit more southward than Blust, near the Tonkin Gulf.
From there, some communities would have reached Formosa and
Luzon through Hainan Island. Others would have moved southward
along the Indochina coast before spreading toward Borneo and Luzon.

 Theory by Robert Shuggs, Richard Shutler and Jeffrey Marck

- It has eventually been formalized by archaeologist Peter Bellwood
(1988, 1991, 1995, 1997) who thinks that the proto-Austronesian
 speakers crossed the strait separating China from Formosa before
4,000 BC to individualize themselves as Austronesian. Subsequently,
they would have reached Luzon, through the Batanes Islands, between
3,000 and 2,000 BC, before spreading toward Borneo, the Celebes and
the Pacific Ocean.
- In 1988, physiologist Jared Diamond (1988) made big noise by calling
a ‘fast track’ evolution of this theory the “Express train to Polynesia”.
The Bellwood hypothesis got the support of linguists (Blust 1988; Gray
and Jordan 2000; Diamond 2000), geneticists (Melton et al. 1995 and
1998), dental specialists (Matsumura 2002) and physical
anthropologists, while sometimes quite in a controversial way (Brace
1980; Brace and Hinton 1981). The pattern of diffusion of rice species
(especially Oryza indica) in Island Southeast Asia, from Mainland China
to the Philippines, also supports this theory (Pejros and Shnirelman,
1998; Paz, 2003). Biologists remain prudent but do not reject the
Taiwan to Philippines route theory (Houghton 1996).

 The Austronesian Migration Theory

- Peter Stafford Bellwood (born Leicester, England, 1943). Emeritus
Professor of archaeology at the School of Archaeology and
anthropology of the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.
He received his Ph.D. from King's College in Cambridge in 1980.
- According to Bellwood, population growth and instability because of
agriculture were probably the main motivating factors behind the
Austronesian expansion. Bellwood further hypothesized that when
prehistoric groups started producing their own food during the
Neolithic Period, as opposed to simple hunting and gathering activities,
it resulted in a dramatic increase in population and the subsequent
development of complex societies. It was possible that many of these
societies expanded into new areas and introduced their food
production techniques in the new lands. As the food producers spread,
so did their languages.

*Epics as Sources of Indigenous People and Culture*

 Biag ni Lam-ang [1640]- (Life of Lam-ang) is a pre-Hispanic epic poem of
the Ilocano people of the Philippines.
 “Father of Ilocano Literature"
 Bucaneg lived from 1591 to 1626. His origin is mysterious.
 He was born blind Tinggian or Itneg.

*Earliest Record of Trade Relations with Chinese*

 Trade between China and the Philippines probably started centuries
before the advent of the Sung Dynasty.
 “A Collection of Data in Chinese Classical Books Regarding the Philippines’’
 It states: “During the T’ang (Thang) dynasty China (in the 7 th to the 9th
century AD) the two peoples of China and the Philippines already had
relatively close relations and material as well as cultural exchanges.”
 During the Sung (960-1127 AD), Arab traders brought Philippine goods to
southwestern China through the port of Canton.
 The Chinese exchanged silk, porcelain, colored glass, beads and iron ware
for hemp cloth, tortoise shells, pearls and yellow wax of the Filipinos.
 The Chinese became the dominant traders in the 12 th and 13th centuries
during the Sung Dynasty (960-1279 AD).
 The first really reliable Chinese records of Borneo and the Philippines
begins with the accession of the last Sung dynasty.
 The first notices of the Philippines are to be found in the work of Chao Ju-
kua, collector of customs of Chuan-chou, a city in Foo-Kien Province,
between 1210 and 1240.
 Chao-Yu-Kua tells of their settlements about the houses of cane being
clustered on high places.
 The name sounds something like " Bisaya," the native name for Visava.
 The book speaks also of the San-sii, or "Three Islands."
 Before 1225 the Chinese vessels were making regular trading trips to
nearly all parts of the Philippines. Many places are mentioned in the
records, but descriptions are given of only a few. Apart from Sulu — which
has always maintained closer relations with Borneo than with the northern
Philippines — the most important trade center appears to have been
Mindoro, which was mentioned as such in the tenth century.
 In addition to Mindoro and Sulu, the following other Philippine islands
have been pretty certainly identified as mentioned in the Chinese records:
Palawan, Kalamian (now Culion), Busuanga, Penon de Coron, Lubang,
Luzon (probably Manila Bay region and south coast), Masbate, Bohol,
Leyte. Many other names which must apply to Philippine localities are
used by the Chinese writers, but none of these have been identified with
any degree of certainty. – Some of them are spoken of as dependencies
of Ma-Yi, and others of Sulu or Bruni. Leyte is called Si-lung, but no
description of it has yet been found. This is also the case with most of the
other islands except Sulu, Palawan, Luzon, and the Kalamian group.
 Though Luzon is mentioned early in the thirteenth century as a
dependency of Ma-Yi, under the name Liu-sin, the first real account of the
largest Philippine Island appears in Chapter 323 of the Ming Annals, where
it is known as Lu-sung.
 An embassy from this country arrived in China with tribute, in the year
1372. “The site of Luzon is stated on this occasion to be in the South Sea
very close to Chang-chou in Fuhkien. The emperor reciprocated the gifts
 of this embassy by dispatching an official with presents of silk gauze
woven of gold and colored threads to the King of the country.” In another
early account it is stated that “Luzon produces gold, which is the reason of
its wealth; the people are simple-minded and do not like to go to law.”
 These people had iron implements of warfare and various articles of other
metals; but contact with the continent of Asia explains these. They were
in regular intercourse with China and with Japan, Borneo, and other
islands some centuries before Spanish discovery. In the little-known work
of Chao-Yu-Kua, a Chinese geographer of the thirteenth century, is a
chapter on the Philippine trade. From the beginning of Philippine trade
with China, the trade relations between Philippine chieftains and Chinese
traders were forged on the basis of good political relations.
 Chinese records show that regular and active trade between China and
the Philippines took place only in the tenth century. Earlier trade between
China and the Philippines was transacted mainly through the Champa
(Vietnam) coast. But Mai-I (Mindoro) traders who previously went through
Vietnam before proceeding to China decided in 972 to circumvent Vietnam
and instead to trade directly with China by sailing into Canton.