GLANCESPREHISTORY OF THE PHILIPPINES

Dr. Jesus T. Peralta

PREHISTORY1 | 6 6

The story of man in the Philippine islands that took place before writing was used to record

events is about 1500 times longer than the historic period. History of the Philippines thus far can only

be pushed back to the hard edge of the past to the 10th century when places in the islands were first

recognized in a copper plate inscription accidentally found in Siniloan, Laguna. Two centuries later,

the islands were among those mentioned in the Song Dynasty chronicles in China. It was not until

about 700 years later that the Spanish explorers started the recording of events that took place in the

islands, slowly at first, then more frequently as time went on.

Even then, tremendous gaps existed since not all aspects of what transpired were recorded, nor

were all events documented. There was also human error and bias. The larger part of the story of

man, his culture, the manner with which he obtained his daily needs, his beliefs and values, how he

progressed through time from the earliest periods, the changes that he and his manner of living

underwent as he met with other peoples not only of these islands but the larger region of Southeast

Asia and the rest of Asia and the Pacific, lies far beyond living memory and therefore difficult to recall

or even to imagine. The reason is that past events before the use of writing are recorded in a manner

difficult for untrained people to read. These records are bits and pieces of man-made things left

behind as waste materials, and the effects that man himself has made on the things around him as

the land, the plant life, the animals and other aspects of nature that man changes merely because of

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his presence. The splintered piece of a stone already with a dulled edge and covered with the patina

of age among other pieces of ordinary stones may well be a man-formed object once used as a tool

and later on left behind after its use to lie on the ground to gather dust and regain an almost

naturally-formed appearance. The patch of grassland in a mountainside forest may have been formed

by the early farming work of man. If the soil of this grass land is dug the presence of ashes may

suggest the clearing of the forest by fire and the method of farming. The different kinds of plant

pollen and spores left in the soil will indicate the kinds of plant cultivated. Evenly spaced round dark

spots may be the remains of posts that would indicate areas where people lived. The garbage left by

people are treasure troves that will yield large amounts of knowledge about the cultures that

produced them. All of these are some of the unwritten records of the past which can be read by

archeologists.

As the research into the past continued, changes continually take place in the prehistoric story

as new data are uncovered. Old and commonly accepted ideas are discarded as existing information

are studied and interpreted in the light of the other discoveries. One of these early theories about

Philippine past is that of the waves of migration explanation of how the islands of this country were

populated starting with the so-called aboriginal Negrito. This idea has been greatly revised and the

time scales adjusted. A better and more realistic picture of the past is now emerging and replacing

what has been at times stories of what might have been and other rather imaginative models.

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What is probably one of the major stumbling blocks towards a better understanding of

developments in the unwritten past is the idea that events follow a single line of movement through

time and that these developments moved in the same manner at the same rate through a region or

for an entire population. For instance, one of the models for the cultural development of Philippine

prehistory starts from the earliest period, the Paleolithic, and on through the Neolithic, Metal Age and

then the Proto-historic period. One would be led to think that the entire country went through all

these stages more or less at the same time, at the same rate, and degree. Nothing can be farther

from the truth. Even present events will show that when one part of the country is already benefiting

from some technological development a larger part of the country still remains in the backwaters.

The major cities, for instance, have been enjoying the use of electricity earlier in the century, but

even today there are still large areas of the Philippines that have not been so lighted except probably

through the use of resin impregnated wicks. This is all the more astonishing since we are already at

an age where communications, transportation, road systems are well improved such that is would

seem that no corner of the country would any longer remain untouched. How much more difficult it

would be for changes to reach far-flung areas during the prehistoric times!

Closer to reality is that developments comes in the form of patchwork or in a checkerboard

fashion. Where networks of contact exist certain areas will more or less be in the same level of

development, but to a greater extent, large areas remain behind in cultural progress, while still fewer

others will be more advanced. Different areas and peoples progress through time in different

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manners and directions. The model is "multi-linear", that is, events move in many lines each of which

has its own character.

In this age when man has already stepped on the surface of the moon, in 1971 a group of

people, the Manobo Tasaday, was discovered still using tools made of stone and with no knowledge of

agriculture. Yet, the Tasaday went through the same periods of time as the Tagalog, Maranao,

Kapampangan and other ethnic groups of the Philippines, without reaching the same stage of

development as many other groups of people in the same country.

What is obvious is that there is not just one story of the past for the entire of the islands but

many, and a number of these are connected while others, completely separated. This makes

prehistory or any history difficult to tell because one will be narrating in several ways at the same

time - which is not possible. The prehistory or even the history of the whole Philippines is actually the

individual histories of the various ethnic groups that comprise the entire population. The prehistorian

merely glosses over the landmarks through time that depict progressively developing events.

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THE PALEOLITHIC CULTURE

The story of man in the Philippines goes back to the middle of the Ice Ages. In geologic terms

this is known as the Pleistocene Epoch which has been dated from 1 to 3 million years. During this

period the entire earth underwent great upheavals. At least four times the climate of the world

became cold and waters from the oceans were turned to ice and became deposited in the polar

regions in the form of glaciers or sheets of ice. During the height of this cold period, the level of the

surface of the oceans of the world went down. Huge expanses of land previously covered by water

became dry land. Bodies of land separated before by water became connected by dry land bridges.

During this period, too, the crust of the earth underwent changes. Pressures from inside the earth and

from the various plates of the earth surfaces pushing against one another reshaped forms of land -

pushing mountains higher, creating foldings where there were plains, sinking others which were once

highlands. For the whole globe, this was a time of tremendous changes. The changes in the land and

sea level affected also the climate, the direction and nature of wind and water currents such that

plant and animal life were affected to a large degree. It was during this tumultous period when nature

appears to have gone on the rampage, that man made his first appearance evident.

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The earliest evidence for the presence of people in the Philippine archipelago appeared in

Cagayan Valley. These were in the form of stone tools found in the same rock formation as fossils of

an extinct elephas. These date back to between .9 to .7 million years or roughly some 750,000 years

ago.

Elsewhere in the world as in Indonesia and China the Homo erectus species were dated to at

about this age and older. Later population genetics studies suggested that about 50,000 years ago

some Proto-malay populations appeared in the country: the Mamanua of Lake Mainit; and between

30,000 to 20,000 years ago the Negrito made their appearance. Evidences point to two streams, one

- probably older, is a movement along the eastern side of the archipelago and going farther north

along the coast, while the later one coming through Borneo and Palawan affected the western side of

the Philippines including Luzon. The Austronesian populations of the archipelago showed their

presence between 6,000 to 7,000 years B.C.

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THE CAGAYAN EVIDENCE

The plains of Liwan on the western side of the Cagayan Valley near the border of the province of

Kalinga-Apayao has been, in the previous years, a source of continual reports of the presence of the

fossil remains of large animals now extinct in the Philippines. These animals include elephas,

rhinoceros, stegodon, and others. These reports interested paleontologists because these kinds of

animals are usually found only in continents and not in small islands like the Philippines. The

presence of these animals can only mean that once upon a time these islands was connected with

the mainland of Asia. In truth, similar reports have been made from the Quezon City area, the Agusan

Valley in the island of Mindanao and the island of Panay in Central Philippines. These reports led to

the thinking that during the height of the last Ice Age when the level of the surface of the sea went

down, underwater ridges were exposed to connect these islands to the continent of Asia. And over

these land bridges, these large animals moved in search of food into this area. Later when the ice in

the polar regions melted with the resulting rise of the level of the sea, the land bridges became

submerged once more cutting off the connections to the continent and forming the chain of islands

known now as the Philippines. There are, of course, other thoughts that the land corridors were not

really continuous and that the large mammals like the early elephants swam across gaps between

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chains of islands. The controversy is not fully resolved. However, these animals lived for a long time

in the islands, adapting to the island conditions. Through the long periods spent in the islands, dwarf

forms of these animals developed as shown by the fossil evidence. Slowly these animals begun to

disappear until finally becoming extinct. It is estimated that these animals last roamed in these

islands some 250,000 years ago.

The scientists who worked in Cagayan Valley found that in the places where these fossils were

found there were also fragments of stones that appeared to be like those used by ancient men as

tools in other parts of the world, as in Indonesia and China. In these two countries fossils of man were

found now known as the Java Man and the Peking Man. The datings were 1.5 million years and

750,000 years, respectively. If the stone fragments found near the fossils of extinct animals in

Cagayan Valley were indeed tools of man, and if these tools can be said to be in the same time frame

as the fossils, then there will be proof that man already existed in the Cagayan Valley when these

animals were still living in the country. What remains is to be able to get a date of the age of these

fossils and stone fragments. Of course, the aim of the work is to find the remains of man himself who

made these stone tools.

The National Museum archeologists started to work in Cagayan Valley in the early 1970’s, first

with the exploration and survey of all the places where fossils and stone tools appeared. These stone

tools were made generally by striking a rock nodule with a stone hammer to break off a fragment.

These rocks were usually different kinds of quartz which like glass will break off in fragments with

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sharp cutting edges. Sometimes, the edges of these fragments were still reworked to get the correct

shape and angle for better use. These small stone fragments were used as tools. The larger stone

tools were made from the rock core from which flakes are hammered off from one side to form a

sharp point. Many flake and pebble-cobble tools were found on the surface of the ground and below

the surface at times with fossils, and sometimes by themselves.

The initial problem was to determine the age of the materials. Just how old became the problem.

In one of the many sites, two flake tools were found at 83 centimeters below the surface and a few

meters beneath these were found the fossil remains of elephas, a kind of ancient elephant. Careful

study showed that both the flake tools and the fossils were in the same layer of rock. After a number

of years of study, it was determined that the rock layer, named the Awidon Mesa Formation, was

formed over the western Cagayan Valley floor during the Ice Ages. But clearer proof was needed. A

piece of tektite - a black glassy object that might have been volcanic material suddenly cooling in the

atmosphere - was used for this purpose. The tektite could be used for dating in a way like using

Carbon-14. In this case the method used the Potassium and Argon in the tektite for radiometric

dating. The piece of tektite used came from the Awidon Mesa Formation. The date obtained from this

single tektite was .92 million years with a margin of error that can range to .17 million years which is

about 750,000 years ago. This date together with the other archeological data, are the first evidences

for the presence of early man in the Philippines during the Ice Ages.

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In Asia, as in Java and Peking, the man that lived during this time was the so-called Homo

erectus or Pithecanthropus erectus, a species of man that lived long before modern man as we know

him today emerged. There is also the possibility that the species was than of an early grade of

modern man. The species of modern man includes the Mamanua or the later Negrito who were long

regarded among the early populations of the Philippines. Up to the present, however, no remains of

the Cagayan Man have been found and the only proofs of his presence are the stone tools that he

made and used, and the remains of the animals that he butchered.

From the little traces of what he has left 750,000 years ago, and knowing the general

environment in which he lived, it is possible to some degree to have an idea of how Cagayan Man

lived. The valley itself was wet and marshy while the surrounding areas were with deep forests. The

kinds of trees and other plants then were similar to those living in this country at present. The most

noticeable of the animals were the large mammals that included various species of ancient kinds of

elephants like elephas and stegodon, rhinoceros, deer, wild pig, giant crocodile and tortoise, among

the more common animals that live at present. Each of these species of animals lived within their

own niches. The Cagayan Man was part of this natural system. The human population was small

compared to the plant and animal populations, and the number was further subdivided into groups of

persons that were related to one another, like those who were members of a single family or a

number of related families. Each grouping would be occupying a certain area within the valley and

the members seldom go out of this area, except probably to get in touch with other groups that were

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somehow related also to him. The size of each area would be large enough for all the members of one

grouping to be able to get their livelihood from the resources available in the environment. Roughly,

this area might be close to ten square kilometers, at times larger and sometimes smaller. The

number of members in each group may range from 30 to 60 individuals, but usually the number was

not big. During the times when food was plentiful, the number of members would increase, and this

would also become smaller when getting food becomes difficult. Individuals or even families might

move away from the group to another area or to join another group in a place where food was more

abundant. The basic social unit was the family group which included other close kins who have joined

the family. The group that occupied a single territory was composed of a number of closely related

family units. The relatives of both the father and mother were looked upon by the children as equally

related to them.

Since there was a balance between the natural environment and the size of the population,

there were enough food resources usually to support a group within a territory. Since the number of

people was little enough, their effect on the environment was not enough to damage it such that

nature could no longer recover. The people obtain food without destroying nature. People during

these times did not produce their own food, but gathered them from nature directly. Foraging is the

basic way for getting food among the early peoples. They do this by gathering things that can be

eaten directly with the least preparation like fruits, young shoots, leaves, stems, flowers, tubers from

the different plants in their environment. They also collect for food shells, fish, crabs, worms, slugs,

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larvae, and other small animals as well as things that animals produce like honey and eggs. It has

been estimated that about two thirds of what the ancient peoples ate were gathered. Only about one

third of their food comes from the hunting of animals. This is because it is easier to gather food than

to hunt wild animals so that in the same amount of time more food can be gathered than hunted.

Also, food gathering can be done by all members of the family excepting the very old, sick, and the

very young, while hunting can be done only by the more mature, able-bodied individuals. One other

factor is that even during modern times it is difficult to hunt animals except for the very old, sick and

very young that cannot run fast. This is more difficult because the tools used for hunting were not

very good unlike the guns of modern times. It is probable that simple traps were used.

While at this stage man did not yet have the knowledge of raising crops for food. It is probable

that he already had some idea of how plants grow and increase from observing nature. When he digs

out a tuber, for example, he would notice later that the vine from which he got it would again grow

after some time and produce other tubers. He then helps nature by putting back to the soil the end of

the vine from which he got the tuber for it to grow other tubers again. This is a simple kind of plant

cultivation that must have been practiced by the early peoples to add more to their food sources.

From practices like these after thousands of years would lead at last to the domestication of different

plants and the planting of entire fields with many kinds of crops.

Since food gathering is done by almost all the members of the family, the practice would be for

the whole group to move together in gathering food, eating when the chance comes during the day.

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Some amount of food were kept to be eaten later on but not much of this was done since there would

be no containers available except perhaps for large leaves or palm sheaths or what one could hold in

hand. One social rule that could be common is the sharing of food regardless of age or sex within a

group. Members of families shared food between themselves; shared or exchanged food with other

families within their group. The extent of the sharing of the food usually shows the range of the

kinship of one group with another. Groups not shared food with are usually not thought to be

members of a kin group.

The food gathered needs little preparation before being eaten specially those obtained from

plants. The use of fire in preparing food for a meal is minimal. Men of this species are already known

to have used fire as the Peking Man of China. It is probable that early man in this country would have

also known the use of fire although the evidence for this has been dated only to about 30,000 B.C. in

Palawan. Fire could have been obtained earlier from natural sources and tended for long periods of

times or produced later through friction.

The dress of the early peoples consisted of the simplest materials obtained from their

environment. Isolated peoples found in some mountains today use plant materials from the forest for

clothing. The Tasaday, for instance, use the leaves of the ground orchid, called Corculigo sp. to cover

the lower part of their body. For a belt they use a length of vine, twisting both ends together into a

knot to hold tight. Others use the sheath of the abaca plant instead of leaves. Men, women and

children use the same kind of clothing.

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While a group would be occupying one large territory where they move about through a season.

It is probable that they use a one place as a more or less permanent home from which they move

about in their daily activities, and to which they return for the night. In some places the convenient

sites would be rock shelters and ledges, or mouths of caves where it is dry and receive enough light.

A rock overhang that can give protection from the rain and direct sunlight, and near some water

sources would be ideal. Here each individual would have his own favorite place; and each family

grouping would also have their own place that they frequent. In places where there are no caves,

living areas are made between buttress roots of large trees with large leaves for roofing or something

similar. The family members of each group would be settling down near each other. Where ever the

living area is made, a water source is always nearby for this is needed not only for drinking, or

washing when this is needed, but water sources are also places where food can be gathered easily

like fish, snails, frogs, tadpoles, crabs, shrimps, and where other animals go to drink. During certain

times of the year when food resources become available in places farther on, the group may leave

their place of living to other campsites where they spend a few days before again returning to their

chosen home area. This home place is where much of the social activities are held, since the daily

food gathering work is largely family action. Studies tend to show that actually much more time is

used in social activities than that spent for getting food. As little as one third of their waking hours is

used for food gathering. They have more time for leisure than for work.

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This Old Stone Age society is a kind where all the individuals are considered equal to one

another in terms of the rights of each one with respect to the others in the group. Respect is given to

age, and individual prowess and ability are recognized. There are no leaders that could be said to be

above everybody else and whose commands are obeyed without question. In some cases, one who is

known for good decisions is consulted when a problem arises; or well-known hunter will be asked to

lead a hunting group. A person recognized as a healer will be asked to cure some one. A particularly

strong individual may assume some leadership but this is limited to that person only and only for a

single occasion, thus his son need not be the leader to take his place in case of death. It was probable

that the group acted as a whole and the decision to do anything is arrived at by mutual consent of all

the members.

The early population of man in the Cagayan Valley during the middle of the Ice Ages lived in

ways similar to the above - described way, living always in the open among the many kinds of large

animals. Thousands of years later these animals began to be fewer and fewer in number, until finally

disappearing. Only the fossils that are to be found later in the 20th century remained. Cagayan Man,

too, disappeared without a trace except for the tools that he made that survived time like the fossils

of the animals. But these types of tools, however, appear to have been used by other men through

time. For a long period these kinds of tools did not change and were the basic tools of other peoples

that lived after the Cagayan Man.

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THE TABON CAVES OF PALAWAN

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The earliest evidence of man, himself, in the Philippines: which is also the earliest appearance of

modern man - Homo sapiens sapiens - in these islands, is that of the Tabon Man of Palawan. The

discovery of the human fossil was made by a National Museum team headed by the late Dr. Robert B.

Fox. The fossil is composed of the skull cap, or the frontal skull bone, two fragments of jaw bones and

some teeth. The set of fossils suggest that are at least three individuals. The skull cap is that of a

young individual, probably female.

The fossils were found in a cave in Lipuun Point in the municipality of Quezon, Palawan. The

cave faces the South China Sea and is located on the western face of the limestone cliff, one among

the more than thirty caves found in that rock outcropping. The cave was named Tabon after the

large-footed bird that lays eggs in huge holes it digs into cave floors, many of which have been found

in the cave. The mouth is about 33 meters above the sea level. A curious fact is that there is no signs

of any sea shells in the cave floor deposits. This is because during that time of occupation by Tabon

Man the sea coast was about thirty kilometers away since the sea did not reach its present level until

about eleven to seven thousand years ago. The layer where the fossils of the Tabon Man was found

has been dated to 22 to 23 thousand years old, which also gives the age of the fossils.

The Tabon Cave, in fact, was populated by peoples earlier than Tabon Man, since stone tools

were there again to prove this. The deepest soil deposit of the cave was dated to aprroximately

50,000 years old, and the youngest to about 10,000 years. This shows that the cave was used

continuously for about 40,000 years by peoples that used the same kind of tools. The earliest carbon

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14 date obtained for the Tabon Cave was about 30,000 years B.C. from charcoal sample, which

among others suggest the earliest date for the use of the fire in the Philippines. The way the tools

were made was exactly the same as those found in the Cagayan Valley about 700,000 years earlier:

the smaller flake tools and the larger pebble-cobble tools. There was however, one difference. In

Cagayan Valley, there were more of the large kinds of stone tools. In the Tabon Cave, there was less

than one percent of the pebble-cobble tools compared to the flake tools. This has been taken to mean

that the larger number of large stone tools in Cagayan was due to the different needs in that place as

compared to Palawan. In the Tabon Caves, the archeological remains tend to show that the early

peoples here were catching more of small animals, bats and birds that live in the cave itself, hence

there was less need for larger kinds of tools.

The type of tools found in the Tabon Cave actually continued to be in use in other sites in the

Lipuun Point even after Tabon Cave was abandoned. In fact, this type of tools continued to be in use

even to recent times among certain peoples. There are a number of archeological sites in the

Philippines that have this kind of tools together with tools of later kind. In Lipuun Point, one of the

more important of these sites is the Guri Cave. This cave was a place where people lived. This cave

contained a layer of soil that contained the garbage left by the people which was composed mostly of

marine shells. This layer was dated between 5000 and 2000 years B.C., and was found to contain

flake tools, bones of animals like the wild pig, deer and others. This cave was used by people at the

time when the sea reached its present level which brought the coastline right at Lipuun Point.

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Another difference with Tabon Cave was that the stone tools from Guri were made from rock

cores that have been previously prepared before flaking off an intended tool, which produced stone

tools with shapes that are repeated - a method that cannot be done with cores that were not

prepared.

OTHER OLD STONE AGE SITES

There are many other Old Stone Age sites in the country - in fact there are more than a hundred

of these on official record as of this writing - between the time of the Cagayan Valley and the Guri

Cave which already showed signs of changes toward another culture stage. One such ancient site was

that of Cabatuan in the island of Panay where again fossil molars of the extinct elephas were found in

a place where many flake tools also emerged.

The work in Cagayan Valley continued also on the eastern side of the valley in the municipality

of Penablanca where a huge outcropping of limestone was found. Here many caves were found to

contain prehistoric materials. Among the more important of these was the Laurente Cave. In the

second layer of the cave floor were flaked stone tools, waste flakes, burned and unburnt bone

fragments and shells.

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The date obtained from the charcoal materials was about 16,000 years B.C. The most important

find here is the proof of the earliest use of fire in Northern Luzon. Another early site in this region is

that of Musang Cave which again contained flake tools, shells and animal bones, all of which were

dated to about 11,000 years B.C. Other Old Stone Age sites have been uncovered in the Philippines

showing that early in time, the islands were already peopled. In Central Philippines, an archeological

site in Samar with small stone flake and bone tools was dated to 10,000 years. Farther south, in the

island of Sanga-sanga where there was apparently scarce stone materials, the shell of the giant clam

was used to form flake tools which have been dated to about 6,000 years old. This tool tradition

continued in use even in later times and have been found together with pottery, polished stone adzes

and other later materials in many other archeological sites.

At about this time between 11,000 to 7,000 years or a little earlier, the level of the sea reached

the present stage, and new and different culture traits began to appear, showing changes in the life

of the people.

THE NEW STONE AGE

Between thirty to ten thousand years ago during the last Ice Age tremendous changes took

place in the Island world of Southeast Asia. The ice sheets in the polar regions melted with the rising

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temperatures of the earth, resulting in the rising of the level of the sea. Vast tracts of land were

flooded including all the land bridges that once connected the islands to the continent of Asia. This

melting of the ice was the last in a series of at least four alternating icing and melting that took place

during the Pleistocene or Ice Ages. Earth-building changes took place that caused alterations in the

weather, wind and water currents, amount of rain and other aspects of the environment, and affected

the lives of the human populations.

The period saw man adapting to the new physical environment the major factor of which was

the loss of large land areas. Population groups slowly split as they adjusted to the changing coast

lines. Much of this movement involved long distances over bodies of water that made travel easier. It

was during this period that archeological proofs begun to show that the life ways of people had

changed a great deal from earlier times. Something tremendous had happened leading to a much

faster pace in life compared to the very slow development during the preceding thousands of years.

For instance, from the type of tools found in the Cagayan Valley to that of Tabon Cave in Palawan,

there was no sign of change until about this time when Guri Cave also in Palawan was used by man.

Here it was clear that man was paying more attention to the shape of his stone tools, specially the

working edge. From archeological sites now began appearing stone tools that are rather flat and

elongated with the working edge found only on one end. At first natural stones with such shapes with

one end ground to form an edge were used.

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This kind of tools was to be called edge-ground tools. Although it sounds simple, this was a big

step from the flaking method of making tools in the previous age. Later on, a further step was made

by shaping stones to form the body of tools. By flaking a stone core all over, man was able to make a

rectangular tablet one end of which he ground to a sharp working edge; and even much later, the

entire surface was ground to make the tool smooth to hold. Still later on he polished the tool with

care making some truly works of art. The form of the tools now assumed an elongated shape. There

were different tool cross sections: oval, rectangular, quadrangular, triangular and many others. The

working edges, too, were of many shapes: straight, concave, convex, and others to suit special uses

as adze, axe, gouge, chisel and so on. It was on the basis of the appearance of this type of tools after

the end of the Ice Age that this period was referred to as the New Stone or Neolithic Age although Old

Stone Age kinds of tools continued to appear in archeological sites together with polished stone tools.

The appearance of this type of tools within a relatively short period of time suggest that there is

a similar change in the life ways of the people that requires the development of these tools. There is

a saying that form follows function. If this were true, the tools developed because there were now

new human needs that required the use of special kinds of tools. Where before the tools could only

cut and scrape in very limited ways, the new tools could be used to shape planks, gouge out a tree

trunk to dig out a boat, make other tools, reap, chop, dig and so on, in a wide variety of ways. In

short, the new tools were more efficient and effective. These allowed man to develop even further

and in an increasingly faster pace.

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One of the markers of this period, too, was the first proof that earthenware was in use early

during this age. About 6000 years B.C. pottery appeared to be already present in northern and

southern Philippines. Evidence of this was found in the Laurente Cave in the province of Cagayan, and

the Sanga-sanga Cave in the Sulu archipelago. These evidences were further backed up by more

Carbon 14 datings showing that by 5000 years B.C. the making and use of pottery were already

widespread all over the Philippines, including the provinces of Isabela, Palawan and the Masbate.

In the whole of Asia, the earliest pottery yet to be dated c0mesfrom the Padah-lin Cave of

Myanmar (Burma) and Japan which date to about the 11,000 years B.C. The dates in the Philippines

are about the same as the middle level of this site in yanmar, a little bit earlier than pottery in

Cambodia and the Yang Shao culture of China, and about as old as the lower levels of the famous

Spirit Cave of Thailand. Thus the development of pottery in the Philippines was roughly taking place

along with the same event in the mainland of Asia, suggesting the existence of a widespread pottery

technology at the end of the Ice Ages.

The very earliest pottery in Asia, although found largely in fragments, are plain pottery of

unknown forms. The very earliest ever recorder, however, included the use of paddles and anvils in

forming the vessel walls in pot-making, apart from hand-molding, a method that is still in use till now.

One of the traits of early pottery is the use of the so-called "carved" and "cord-bound" paddles. The

carved paddle usually have grooves cut in parallel lines on the surface so that when the pot is hit with

it supported by a shell operculum or stone anvil inside the vessel, the marks are left on the clay. At

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times the grooves are cut at right angles to each other forming net-like marks on the pot surface.

Sometimes the paddle is wrapped with cord to leave the negative impressions on the clay. The use of

these methods gradually became rare as time went on. These methods were present in early

Philippine pottery. Apart from these impressed surface marks on the pottery the first form of incised

decoration on pottery appeared in Bagumbayan, Masbate at about 4500 B.C., as parallel and combed

lines in a few of the fragments.

Pottery during the New Stone Age, too, was quite unique. Each single piece did not have any

copy and was very imaginative and beautiful. The Leta-Leta Cave in northern Palawan, for example,

yielded at least two such pieces. One of this was a stem cup with the body shaped like an egg with a

slender stem with a round flat base. A narrow lip was provided at the mouth of the vessel. Another

was a double-gourd vessel, the mouth of which was formed after an open human mouth with the

facial features. The most famous of this early pottery was of course the now world-renown burial jar

from the Manunggul Cave of Quezon, Palawan. The jar had a bulbous body that tapers down. The

shoulder was decorated with scrolls painted using red iron oxide. Between the scrolls the spaces were

textured with dots. The jar had a rounded cover also decorated with painted red iron oxide scrolls and

dots. On the top of the cover was a boat the bow of which was decorated with a human face. In the

boat towards the rear was a boatman holding a paddle and in front was another individual with arms

crossed across the breast. It was thought that the crown ornament of the cover showed the soul of

the dead being ferried into the next world. This was the most beautiful Philippine pottery from some

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900 years before the birth of Christ. Now known as the Manunggul Jar, it has been declared a national

treasure.

The pottery suggests many things about the life of the people of that time. First it provided proof

of the presence of rice in the Philippines. The husk of rice was found impressed into the clay of a pot

sherd recovered from an archeological site in Cagayan valley. The level of the soil where this was

found was dated to about 2000 years before Christ. This can mean many things: one, that man at

that time was already cultivating rice for food, or at least gathering this as food supplement, if it was

not already a staple. The use of the grain could imply a life style that does not force people to wander

about large areas in order to obtain their basic daily needs. It meant a closer clustering of social units

in low, floodplains where rice grows naturally, and where there were clays available for the making of

earthenware. This suggested a river-oriented life where the best means of transportation were the

bodies of water through the use of water craft made possible by the new types of tools. Suggested

was a kind of life where more food was produced than could be eaten making possible activities other

than merely the production food.

Another new activity was also shown by earthen spindle whorles - large beads of clay placed on

the lower part of sticks to serve as counter-weights in the making of thread. These spindle whorles

found in New Stone Age sites in Cagayan Valley suggested the weaving of cloth, in addition to the

earlier use of the polished stone beater in the making of bark cloth. It is probable that the products of

pot-making and weaving were used by the people who made them, although it is also probable that

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some of these were also exchanged for some other goods. Beyond the quest for food, the New Stone

Age reveled for the first time an aspect that shows man’s humanity. The best example of this is

Duyong Cave of Palawan. In this site the earliest intact burial ever discovered in the Philippines was

found. With the flexed skeleton were lime containers made of shell - the first evidence of the betel

chewing complex that included the use of lime, a social habit widespread in Southeast Asia. Another

striking find with this burial were discs ground from the base of cone shells, some with holes near the

edge while others with the holes in the center of the discs. These were the earliest body ornaments

ever found, showing for the first time in this country man’s awareness of beauty.

The other forms of ornament during this early time were jade beads dated as early as about

3000 years before Christ coming from the Dimolit site near Palanan Bay in Isabela which also yielded

decorated pottery stone grinders and mortars and more important, flake tools with the so-called

"silica gloss". This gloss on the edge of the stone tools usually suggested use in the reaping of plants

- again probable proof of plant cultivation by man. Other beads and pendants were reported from

Palawan and the Cagayan Valley which were of about the same age, some of jade and many more

made from little shell discs and small snails, the stone beads apart from jade were also made from

black and white onyx and were of many different shapes: barrel-shaped, rectangular, round, disc-like.

There were also ornaments like ear pendants made from fired clay with the surfaces decorated with

lines. Others were made from bone and tusks of wild pig and monkey teeth. Bracelets, too, were

found not only made from shell, tusk, but also of jade, agate and jasper. It is clear from the findings of

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archeology that the use of body ornaments during this period was already widespread all over the

islands, in the same manner that pottery was also found throughout the land. However, these were

on the other hand much more rare than pottery and during those times these must have been items

of immense value.

All these items recovered from burials also suggest that the early peoples of these islands have

a set of beliefs and values that guide different aspects of daily living. Much of knowledge about these

beliefs come from the way they treated their dead. There are a number of ways they bury the dead

as: with the body flexed and placed directly into the ground; buried first in the ground or left until

only the bones remained and then placed in burial jars. Also in later times the remains were burned

and the bones placed in small pots inside caves. Some bones are covered with red iron oxide before

being placed inside vessels. It is likely that many more other practices existed in different places, but

the above alone shows that there are different ways people treated the dead depending on the

culture of the place. It indicates that not just one culture existed in the islands but many, and many

variations of each one.

The way they treated their dead also give an idea of their belief in an after-life. The flexed

skeleton uncovered in the Duyong Cave in Palawan was found together with polished quadrangular

adzes made of stone and adzes made from the hinge of the giant clam, shell disc ornaments and a

bivalve containing lime used in betel-nut chewing, among others. In the other end of the island, in the

Arku Cave of Penablanca, Cagayan, buried with the human remains were pottery, jade earrings,

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spindle whorles, bone tools, bark cloth beater and others. These shows that there was a widespread

practice of putting things used in daily life with the dead, probably the personal belongings of the

person. Considering that these things during those times must have been valuable, these would not

have been left buried unless there is a greater need for them by the dead rather than by the living.

The practice suggests a deep belief in life after death, and the burying of grave goods was for the

purpose of providing the loved one with things to use in the after-life.

There are a number of other ideas that can be learned from the grave goods. One of these is

that by this time there were already differences in the number and quality of the material belongings

of people. This can only mean that in producing daily needs some households were able to make

more than what they could consume. This surplus could then be exchanged with other things that

they themselves did not produce like pottery, ornaments, tools and the like. It can be surmised that

apart from food exchanges there now existed trade that has to do with non-food goods, some that are

wanted for their beauty and the prestige that these bring. From the nature of some of the goods, it

was clear that some of these traveled long distance even over large bodies of water, as the beads

made of semi-precious stones like jade, onyx and jasper.

Trade of this kind is added proof that people by this time lived in more or less permanent places

using structures that are largely man-made. Traces of two structures dating to this period was found

in Dimolit, Isabela. Portions of two other structures were also found. The forms were suggested by the

presence of round postholes in two rows forming a more or less square enclosure with a gap in the

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north wall suggesting the entrance. The area within the enclosure was littered with potsherds and

flakes, and the soil was compact. Each of the structure had the remains of fireplace in the

southwestern corner. The living area is the ground level itself. The age of one of the structure was

between 1220 to 3390 years before Christ, the earliest evidence for a man-made structure in this

country.

SOCIAL LIFE IN THE NEW STONE AGE

In many parts of the country, the culture of the Old Stone Age went on specially where there was

less contact with other peoples or less pressures from within the society and the environment. In

other areas, changes in the way of the life of the people took place when a new idea is introduced

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into the society or the people themselves develop new life ways in to answer to new needs. As the

world about them changed, people adapted to the new conditions, starting a cycle of changes which

again affected the physical environment. Much of the old life styles, however remained, except those

that have lost their use.

The difference between the culture of the previous age and the life in the New Stone Age is that

whereas man was before only a food procurer, that is, he only gathers food from nature, now he has

become a producer. He achieved this great leap by the simple fact that he learned how to

domesticate plants and animals as food bases. And more visible proofs of this became clear during

this period. The process took a long time - hundreds and even thousands of years. It begun, perhaps,

from the early "incipient" kind of plant domestication by replanting the vine from which a tuber has

been taken. It is also probable that the seeds of edible plants were dispersed by man himself about

the areas where he lived when he eats these, thus helping in the growth of these plants.

It is not known which were the plants first domesticated. The earliest evidence of a probable

cultivated plant is rice. This grass, however, need not be the earliest food plant tended by man for the

simple reason that the different processes that the grain has to undergo before this could become

edible is complex and needs other forms of knowledge like how to remove the grain from the husk

and to separate these, how and in what vessel to cook the grain to make it digestible by man. One of

the more common of the staples used by peoples in the hinterlands are the tubers of many kinds, like

yams, taro and various others known in some localities as "name", "calot" or "biking" which are

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various species of root plants that belong to the genus, Dioscorea. These tubers, however, have not

been seen in archeological sites since these are highly perishable. Taro, for instance, has been

cultivated by man for such a long time. At present taro can only be grown vegetatively, that is, by

means of cuttings. Another evidence for the old age of taro in the cultures of the peoples of the

Philippines is that this is the plant that plays a part in the native rituals, even having a different ritual

name, and among the Cordillera mountain peoples, has been included as one of the items placed in

the ritual boxes of ritual specialists.

The manner of tending to plants involves the use of small plots scattered in different places, and

which are planted with different kinds of crops. These different varieties of plants are kinds that

mature at different times of the year so that as one kind is consumed, the people can turn to another.

This ensures that there will be food throughout the a year. This way of cultivating plants also assures

that if ever one set of plants would suffers from some kind of pest, there will still be other food

sources that can be used. The people subsist on what is known as a "broad spectrum" diet, that is, a

food base that is composed of many varieties, and not dependent on only one staple.

The way of planting is the "kaingin" or slash-and-burn or dry cultivation. This kind of planting is

called this because of how it is carried out. First a clearing is made in the forest by slashing down the

vegetation within a chosen plot at the beginning of the cycle, usually at the start of the dry season.

After a period allowing the slashed debris to dry, this is burned usually timed before the start of the

wet season. Crops like taro may be planted at once, others are planted after the first rains came to

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soften the soil. The growth of the plants is dependent on rainfall, hence the name dry cultivation as

against planting that makes use of man-made water sources as irrigation.

It is usual in this method to have several kinds of plants in the same plot. Also after one set of

plants have been eaten others are planted in sequence. After a number of seasons of use, the plot is

allowed to lie fallow, that is, to let natural growth again to take place in order that the soil may

recover its original fertility. Usually this takes place for about ten years, before the plot is again used

for cultivation, and the same cycle is repeated. During the time that the field is left to lie fallow,

another area would have been cleared during the beginning of the planting season for another

cropping, starting a new cycle. A number of fields in fact are kept under cultivation but staggered in

time so that through the years the man cultivated several fields in cycles.

The effect of this is that the population is assured of a source of food that is reliable through the

whole year, and located in places that are within easy reach, and with yields that can be predicted in

terms of time and quantity. Modern studies have shown that this type of cultivation is very efficient -

that in a ratio of effort spent in the cultivation, the yield is in fact higher than that from wet

agriculture. The harvest very often is more than what the people could consume. Planting with root

crops solves the problem of storage of surplus food, since the tubers can merely be left in the ground

until needed - a method that further increases the yield of the crop.

The main source of food of man then comes from the yields of his fields. He adds to this

additional food from the forest, specially those that he does not himself produce. Thus food gathering

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remains important in the society of man specially since there is little effort spent in this. The only

drawback is that this is limited by the fact that particular food is seasonal in nature. The hunting,

particularly the trapping, of game is continued to add to the protein needs of the people. There is no

archeological evidence in the Philippines at this time for the domestication of animals. It is probable,

however, that among the first animals to be domesticated are the pig, chicken and the dog which are

indigenous to Southeast Asia; with the water buffalo during the later part of the New Stone Age which

came probably with wet rice agriculture.

With man now able to sustain himself with what food he produced from cultivated fields, the

pressure for him to travel through a wide area, to move seasonally in search of food, became less and

less. He now tended to remain within a limited territory with his household and those of others with

whom he has close kin relationship.

The changing needs, too, created changes in his tools as described earlier. The new tools

enabled him to be more efficient in changing the world about him, and making the process of change

even faster, specially within the areas that he frequent. He has now become less dependent on

nature for shelter, and since there is now the need to stay where his fields are, his homes were made

about these. Structures more complex than those described in the earlier age could now be made.

There is now a basic roof protecting an enclosure that may or may not be walled in depending on the

need. Among the Tau’t Batu people who were studied in 1978 in southern Palawan, the smallest

structure when they live in the cave during part of the year when the weather is bad, is a basic

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sleeping platform raised slightly off the ground with a fireplace beside it to provide warmth during the

night. This is called a "datag". Depending on the conditions, the "datag" is made more complex. If the

place is windy, a wall is made in the direction of the wind, or all three sides are walled, leaving open

the side where the fireplace is located. If drizzle enters the cave mouth to affect the "datag" a roof is

provided. The houses of the Tau’t Batu near their kaingin when examined closely will show that these

are really more complex "datag". Each house is composed of several family units that form a kin

group with the place of each family unit defined by the individual "datag".

The more traditional Negrito of today ordinarily use a lean-to roof that they can move about to

protect them against wind and rain with the ground level used as the living area. Each family unit has

its own lean-to. Several lean-tos are often grouped in an area and the whole shows the number of

family units in that kin grouping. The structures excavated in Dimolit suggested square enclosures

with entrances on one side. The structures looked semi-permanent with the living areas on the

ground level. During those times, there could have been a number of different kinds of structures

build by man depending on his needs and environments. As time went by, these structures grew

more and more complex, specially where skills are developed.

The grouping of living places closer together in single geographic units resulted in a different

way of living, and in the way people look at their relationships with one another. One of the most

telling effect is the increase in contact between individual persons apart from the immediate

members of a family; between families and family groups. The circle of contact of a person is thus

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larger than that possible during the time when man was merely gathering and hunting for his

livelihood. With closer and more intimate social exchanges, the characters of ethnic groups became

more defined.

The concept of a community thus grew with the intimate daily inter-action between people,

together with the feeling of belonging extended to the whole group: thus the idea of "us" as against

"you". It is probable that ethnic groups developed from this new relationships tied up with the

growing permanence of where people lived, with people acting and reacting to similar situations in a

more or less the same manner. Thus, the way of clothing, of trapping animals, and of doing many

things, begun to be identified with a specific group of people who are referred to by a special name,

for instance, Negrito, Tasaday, and so on. This feeling of belonging to a particular ethnic group still

exists today when people say that they are Tagalog, Ilocano, Cebuano, Ifugao and so on. The most

important aspect of belonging to a single group is the use of a single language by the group. A further

subdivision of groups is formed and identified by the use of a specific dialect of a certain language.

The effect of close community living and the cultivation of fields is a lesser tendency for family

units to move away to join other groups in times of scarcity. The different family members of the

group tended to support each other, hence there is a tighter organization. There is specially a

growing idea of group action and responsibility. It is probable that land is considered to be a free

good among the members of the group within the territory. Although the idea of ownership of land by

individuals may not be existing, the use is often extended to the current cultivator only. Others may

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use the land when abandoned by a previous farmer. The important thing is that the families are tied

down to land, specially those places with more or less permanent cropping. There would then be

some form of ownership for a period of time at least. Practices of this sort would lead to changes in

the way people regard property and the way members of the family relate to one another with

respect to how such items of property are handed down from individual to individual and from

generation to generation - the concept of inheritance.

       There might be a tendency for certain units to develop relationships that would trace inheritance

through both father and mother; others through the mother and her line alone; through the father’s

line, and so on. The different patterns of relationships would vary according to how each group would

adapt itself. There would be groups that would think of themselves as related through the mother’s

line or the father’s or in some other way, as the case may be, with regards to how properties are

treated. In the Philippines the pattern that apparently developed due to the fragmented kind of

societies here, is that the relationship is to both sides of the parent. In practice there is a bias to each

side depending on the actual behaviour and relationships between individuals.

       While what food produced is consumed largely by the same family unit, some are exchanged for

things made by others. It is probable that some individuals make only certain things, like tools,

ornaments and the like. Some people would then barter for things they themselves do not produce.

For example individuals who knew how to make earthenware pottery would exchange some of these

for food that he himself could not produce or for cloth he could not weave. The same would be true in

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the making of stone tools for this kind of work needs special skills which few individuals have. Cloth

would be extremely difficult to get during these early times and most would rely on the more easily

made bark-cloth. However, there would be persons with surplus food who will be willing to part with

this in exchange for cloth.

       The systems of trade during this period it seems are not limited to barter between individuals or

between communities only. The reach of the trade seemed to cover long distances.Jade beads, for

instance, have been found in the Manunggul Cave in Palawan during the latter part of the New Stone

Age about 1000 years B.C. There is no evidence that jade beads were ever made in Palawan much

less were there jade deposits found in that area nor anywhere else in this country until the recent

times. This suggests contacts involving trade with the mainland of Asia.

A more telling evidence of the reach and breadth of the network of contact between the

different places in Asia is that given by pottery. By the 11 thousand B.C. pottery was already being

used in Japan to the east and as far as Burma to the west. The general methods of pot-making, and

the different forms and decorations were so similar throughout the area such that it would be difficult

to deny that by this time there was already a great amount of contact and exchanges between the

different groups of people. The presence of pottery by 6 thousand B.C. in both ends of the Philippines

suggests the early extent of the possible scatter of the knowledge of pot-making through the islands

which were already separated by bodies of water. Trade was made easier with the use of boats which

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enabled people to carry large numbers of goods to distant places with ease and speed that if these

things were carried on their backs by way of land routes.

Another aspect that made trade easier was the growth of communities where the houses were

built close to one another which grouped large numbers of people as a ready market for quantities

goods that could be sold in one place. This made things more profitable for traders since he can load

into a boat goods that he is more or less sure of being able to dispose in a particular place instead of

wandering about from place to place seeking buyers who are widely scattered. Continual trade

between individual merchant and buyer, too, leads to "suki" relationships, a tacit agreement for a

buyer to prefer to deal with a particular seller. This relations can lead to continuous and increased

trade which will also have a tendency to branch off to other individuals when the good word about the

trade spreads around.

An interesting feature of life during the New Stone Age in these islands is the appearance of the

first signs of man’s beliefs in the reality of things that are different from the sensible world. From its

complete absence in the past periods, man-made things begun to be found together with the remains

of the dead like the polished stone and shell adzes, the shell disc pendants, and shell lime container

found in the Duyong Cave burial in Palawan, and similar other things found in other graves dating to

the same period in different sites in the country mentioned earlier. All these show that by this time

there is already a concept of different worlds: the present physical world, and another one after life.

The things left with the remains of the dead suggest that there are goods, too, that the person would

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need to have in the other world, thus probably the things that he owned that were essential to him

are placed with him in the grave. There are other things that likewise showed this belief in an after-

life, or at least something that is beyond this life. There were instances when the bones of the dead

were recovered after first burial and these were covered with red earth, and then reburied in some

protected place or kept inside jars in caves where these will be safe. This practice show that even a

long time after a loved one has departed, the people he left behind still regard him in some respect

that seemed to be important in their own lives. This concern for the dead is practiced in many

different ways even among the present-day Filipinos when the dead is remembered on the 1st of

November of each year.

       The society that existed during the New Stone Age in these islands served as the base for the

growth of the populations later to inhabit the country with cultures that are different yet similar in

some ways with each other as members of one family. It is known that the basic populations here

were composed of some aboriginal groups before the Negrito came to be recognized as a separate

ethnic population. It has been suggested, for instance, that the Tabon Man has close relationships

with Bushmen of Australia in a number of physical characteristics. The scatter of items of material

culture in the islands as well as the whole of Southeast Asia showed continuous movements of people

over wide areas both on land and over water spreading items of culture, language and people

themselves, not in waves of migration, as was thought of before, but slowly through a long period of

time, and in many directions. The peoples of the Philippines speak different variations of one mother

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language known as the "Austronesian" family of languages that spread from South Asia eastward and

on to the Pacific world. Some of these languages have many dialects depending on the amount of

separation of one group of people from one another. And the different languages, too, differ in degree

from one another again depending on the amount of time and distance between different culture

groups.

THE APPEARANCE OF METAL

During the last two thousand years before the birth of Christ another great change took place in

these islands. This was shown again by the materials found in archeological sites. This time, while

things of the New Stone Age were unearthed like the polished stone tools, pottery pieces, shell and

some stone ornaments, new things begun to appear. In the northern Philippines a suggestion of what

could be the oldest sign of metal in this country appeared in the Musang Cave in Cagayan.This was a

brass needle tenuously dated about 2000 B.C. In Palawan bronze tools, glass beads and bracelets and

gold beads were dug up in the Duyong, Uyaw and Guri Caves. Duyong Cave is dated between 300 to

500 B.C. while Guri between 100 to 200 years B.C. Uyaw Cave contained jar burials with bronze adzes

and spears, and was as old as the Duyong Cave. By this time the use of metals is already widespread

in the old world and mainland of Asia. But its first appearance in these islands marked the beginning

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of a new set of changes that again altered the lifeways of the people and made the pace of life much

faster than the previous ones.

The earliest metals to appear were gold, bronze, brass and copper in the form of ornamental

beads, and tools like adzes and spearheads. There were very few of these, specially the bronze.

Bronze appeared only very briefly so that unlike other places of the world, there is no period in this

country that can be said to be "Bronze Age". The reason is that the copper-bronze materials that

appeared were far too small in number and were found only in a very few number of places. These

metals could only have been brought in through trade and were never made there. In Palawan,

however, moulds made of fired clay which were used in casting socketed adzes were found showing

that tools using these metals were cast in Palawan. The Philippines have one of the richest copper

deposits in Southeast Asia but there is no evidence that this ore was ever mined during this period.

Neither is there a tin deposit so that bronze could only have been brought here. Gold is only present

in good quantities but this was not mined until very much later in time. These early metals could only

have been brought into the islands through the movements of people or through trade, but these

came painfully slowly and rarely.

The first solid evidence for the presence of iron tools in this country was found in Palawan and

dated about 190 B.C. Even in the periods immediately following, iron remained a very rare

commodity and its presence was not known in many parts of the country, and then several hundreds

of years later. In the Bicol regions it did not appear until A.D. 500. There are high grade iron deposits

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in the Philippines notably in Luzon but for some reason these were not mined until the moderntimes.

The sites with iron slags came approximately after A.D. 1000. It is possible that earlier signs of iron

may have been destroyed through time. In fact in Palawan, there were sites earlier than 200 B.C.

which seemed to have iron. It is known that by the 7th century B.C. China was already casting iron

and by the 3rd century A.D. it was able to make iron that is not brittle and started to produce large

amounts of metal goods like plow points. They had a monopoly on this until the 16th century A.D.

when the Japanese, Europeans, and the Thais came in. In the Philippines, the number of metal pieces

recovered was not in quantities enough to warrant a chronological category of "Metal Age", more so

when there are questions as to whether or not the metal pieces or the metal itself were produced

here.

      The earliest date for the presence of iron in the Philippines came from the chamber B of

Manunggul Cave in Lipuun Point in Palawan. This second camber of the cave that produced the

famous Manunggul jar, was likewise used as a jar burial area during a time later than that of Chamber

A. The burial jars were much simpler in design. Together with the jars were found glass beads of

many colors and shapes; beads of onyx and carnelian; shell beads that are discoid, ringlike and cowry

shells with holes on one side for stringing together. There were also nautilus shell scoops and stone

anvils used for making pottery. Other sites in Palawan of the same age had the same kinds of

materials present: iron tools of many kinds, fragments of copper and bronze, glass bracelets and

beads, carnelian, jade and other semi-precious stone beads, gold beads, and shell ornaments of many

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kinds. Decorated pottery was also present. Other sites in different places in the country that date to

the same period contained similar sets of materials. What marks the period is the set of artifacts that

included iron, glass and carnelian, apart from the set of materials that appeared in earlier periods.

       Iron made possible many changes in the culture of peoples of the islands and made the rate of

change even faster. That tools made of iron could retain a sharp cutting age longer made these more

effective and efficient than tools made of stone. Stone tools lose the sharpness of working edges even

after a single use and need to be reground to be of use again. Metal tools, specially iron, on the other

hand can be used over and over before being rehoned. Another advantage is that iron can be shaped

to whatever useful form is needed so that it can be adapted for a very wide range of tool needs.

Within a few hundred years, iron tools begun to be more and more common in archeological sites all

over the country. With its spread far-reaching changes took place in the lifeways of people. One of

the most effective use of the iron blade is in the clearing of forests for the cultivation of food plants.

Whereas stone tools are not very efficient in cutting down trees, metal tools do not have this

limitation. On top of this metal tools can reduce the time required for clearing and in making wider

areas available for cultivation.

This enhances larger cropping and a subsequently larger harvest. The increase in food supply

makes it easier to support a large population. Thus there rose during this period a drastic change in

the ratio between man and land area. There were more men now per unit area than the earlier

period. This pressure on the capacity of land required new methods of food production that would

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yield more in the same area of land. It is probable that with the introduction of iron, intensive

agriculture also begun to grow in the country, gradually replacing slash-and-burn cultivation

or kaingin as the basic method for plant cultivation, specially in the lowland areas where there were

large populations centers. This method is one that is productive in the case of mono-cropping, that is,

the planting of a single kind of plant like rice.

Rice has peculiar characteristics as a kind of grass. At a certain stage in its life it requires

flooding waters, and during the ripening of the grain, it needs a dry environment with plenty of

sunshine. Thus the early forms of the plant grows in floodplains which dry up after the initial annual

rains. The planting of rice thus created a yearly cycle of planting activities that begin with the seeding

of the plants at the start of the rainy season, ending in a harvest season some months after the

floodings have receded after the monsoonal rains. The floodplain areas were thus occupied by

intensive cultivators with the slash-and-burn cultivation left in the higher slopes where the annual

floodings do not reach, planting crops that are dependent only on rainfall as tubers like yams and

taro.

Two groupings then evolved from this difference in crop cultivation: the intensive wet agriculture

which is characterized by mono-cropping: and the earlier slash-and-burn cultivation which is based on

multi-cropping and inter-cropping. The first is associated with more densely populated communities in

the lowlands near the coast or mouths of rivers or floodplains; and the latter in smaller or scattered

settlements in the highlands. The first is more in touch with trade networks that included contacts

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with communities as far as the mainland of Asia; while the latter remained relatively conservative due

to less contact with the outside. The exception to this cultivation method and geographic location are

the highland peoples of the Philippines like the Ifugao of the Cordillera ranges who practice intensive

wet rice cultivation high in the mountains who were already in that area at about the beginning of the

Christian era. Those in the lowland and coastal areas were subjected to continual contacts with the

outside and their cultures were marked by rapid and continual changes; while the highland

communities were conservative resulting in a very slow pace of culture change.

       The increase in contact and trade with areas outside of the Philippine islands is shown not only

by the artifacts dating to this period that could only have come from other place, but is also

suggested by the ability of local peoples in reaching outlying areas through the use of sea-going

crafts. In 1979, a boat was excavated in northeastern Mindanao near the city of Butuan at a depth of

about two meters. The remains were composed of five planks. The original boat measured about

fifteen meters long and three meters wide. The planks were joined together edge-to-edge with the

use of wooden pegs, and the hull is further made strong by bindings of fibre cords through holes in

raised lugs on the inside surfaces of the planks - an ancient Southeast Asian method of boat-building.

The wood of the boat has been dated to A.D. 320. This boat was the fore-runner of the water craft

later to be referred to as "balanghai". Others of this kind of boat were excavated or found in the same

area indicating a widespread use of this boat type even as late as A.D. 1250. boat is large and stable

enough to sail over wide open seas not merely to travel up and down rivers, but to go from island to

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island as part of a large overlapping networks of marine trade. Proof of this is the discovery of a

similar boat excavated in Pontian, Malaysia which has been dated to A.D. 295. Boats of this type in

fact are still being made not only in southern Philippines but also in Sulawesi, Indonesia, showing that

this type of boat is used widely over Southeast Asia and along the coasts of mainland Asia even

before the beginning of the Christian era. It is on board boats like these that merchandise like iron,

jade, carnelian, glass, bronze and others later to be recovered in archeological sites, were able to

reach the islands of Southeast Asia.

       Boats like these show that certain parts of the population now spend their time in trading in

addition to or completely apart from plant cultivation and animal domestication. While this shows that

the population now produced more than enough food to allow part of the society to engage in trade

alone, the more important thing is that there is now also the start of division of labor within the

society. Boat-building, for example, is possible only if a certain group of craftsmen were to specialize

in this type of work for this requires special skills and knowledge of ship structure and other lore.

Other areas ofhuman activity would reflect this developing division of work.

This period of prehistory is known not only for the appearance of metals, but also as the Golden

Age of Philippine pottery. The pottery of the foregoing period were beautifully unique and the pieces

were rarely repeated. During the Metal Age, all over the country appeared beautiful pottery in large

numbers and in many different types. Within each type is a large number of variations not only in

shape but in the decorations incised, painted, impressed or appliqued onto the surfaces of the

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vessels. Apart from Palawan where these kinds of pottery were dug up, one of the earliest

archeological sites that yielded the pottery marker of this period is the Kalanay site in the island of

Masbate.

The Kalanay site is a burial cave where part from the pottery other materials were recovered:

iron tools, jade beads, blue glass beads, polished stone adzes, stone and shell operculum used as pot-

making stone anvils, and a piece of textile. The pottery were overly decorated with scallop or lenslike

designs, curving and geometric lines forming scrolls, diagonals, triangles, and many others. Pottery

similar to these were found in other parts of the central and coastal southern Philippines that date

more or less to the same age, suggesting that the tradition is one that is spread by the movements of

people through boats.

Where pottery of this age appeared, there were however special traits that identify one group

distinctly from pottery of another area. The designs and forms, too, are indeces of relationship

between different areas. An example of this is the kind of earthenware that appeared in Magsuhot,

Bacong, Oriental Negros. One of the more curious of the forms that appeared here are vessels that

look like upside-down chalices with no bottoms, and the sides of which are with four or so rectangular

holes. The use of these vessels are not yet known. The form of the rather elongated pots is also

curious, as the other flat vessels. Even though the pottery are thickly made, with rather grainy

bodies, these were all well fired. In no other place in the Philippines is pottery of this type found,

except in the Huyop-huyupan Cave in Camarines Sur where similar forms were found with the

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difference here that the earthenware were not well fired such that the insides of the vessel walls still

had black cores. One curious item, too, another of the open-ended vessels but with two human

figures clasping each other around the vessel, was found in Magsuhot. A metal vessel of this kind was

also uncovered in Lamongan in the Indonesian archipelago.

       The island of Dumaran just northeast of the mainland of Palawan likewise produced distinctive

pottery marked by a large number of water juglike bottles that were thickly potted and had grainy

clay. The most elegant of the Metal Age pottery to appear, however, are those excavated in the

general area of Batangas and Mindoro, and dated towards the latter part of this age, before high-fired

trade ceramics came into the country. These pottery again have a wide range of forms, angle pots,

jugs, goblets, jars, dishes with high stands decorated with cut-outs, most of these ornately decorated

with incised lines, impressions, combings, appliques of studs or spines, animal or human faces and

figures, and so on. The bodies of the pieces were highly polished, burnished and covered with a red

slip. The craftsmanship is of very high quality and the finish is finely done.

       Although the same forms of pottery, were found in the adjoining areas in the provinces of Rizal

and Laguna, the finish is not of the same quality as those found in the Batangas area, and the clay is

of different mineral contents which is visible in terms of clay body color and texture. There is no

known earlier potting culture in Batangas thus far excavated so that this industry appeared to have

risen only during the late Metal Age, and continued on to later periods.

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       It may be noted that locally made earthenware through time to the present have been fired in

the open without the use of a kiln so that the vessels were all heated well below 800 degrees

centigrade. There are evidences, however, from the island of Dumaran and Sorsogon where some

pottery were fired as high as 1300 degrees - a temperature that can be reached only through the use

of a kiln, a structure not found in the island Southeast Asia during prehistoric times. This suggests

that either there were kilns indeed in these islands during these times although very limited in

number, or that these high-fired pottery were again brought in through trade, which is more likely,

since there were other trade goods brought in from other lands during this age.

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THE CERAMIC AGE

A New wave of changes took place in the Philippines at about A.D. 1000 marked by the

appearance in archeological site of high- fired ceramics. This gave proof of the increased marine

trade with the mainland of Asia and the land farther west. Philippine cultures reeled against the

impact and suffered first from the social collisions, but eventually recovering to benefit from the

changes introduced by the contacts with the great traditions of Asia.

The first evidence of high-fired ceramics came from the municipality of Laurel, Batangas in the

form of the base and portion of the side of a stoneware jar. The jar was color glazed with green,

yellow, and reddish purple. The latter glaze was identified to be from manganese, a glaze used during

this period in the kilns of Fayum, Egypt. The piece was dated at about the latter half of the 10th

century. This sherd is the earliest proof of the Arab trade that reached out east to the Philippines. It is

noteworthy that stoneware ascribed to the 5 dynasties period in China (A.D. 907-960) also begun to

be found in many archeological sites in the country, principally in northeastern Mindanao about

Butuan City, and Batangas. In Butuan City a jarlet made of many-colored glaze was dug up. The jarlet

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was Arabic in origin. From the same area, a piece of blue-green jar fragment was also recovered and

identified as Persian in origin. Piecesthought to belong to the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-906) have also

been found by illegal diggers in these areas, and in the northern tip of Luzon. The recovery of sherds

from the Laguna de Bay area has also been reported although no systematic excavations made there

yielded any Tang dynasty materials. The finds from the different sites suggest that Chinese and

Middle Eastern ceramics seemed to have arrived in the Philippines at about the same period. The

latter were fewer in number. The noteworthy thing is that the Middle Eastern ceramics were found

only in areas where there were Chinese tradeware so that it would seem that these ceramics came as

a consequence of trade with the Five Dynasties of China at about A.D. 1000.

In all likelihood, the overseas trade used parts of the existing independent local trade networks

with regards to the early contacts with China. The reason for this is that the early trade ceramics

found in the Philippines were very limited in distribution, and did not scatter and penetrate other

trade networks. The Yueh-type wares as stated above were found only about northeastern Mindanao

with some penetration to the north, and on the western side of the province of Batangas, which were

very localized distributions. Scott, 1984, noted that with respect to the trade carried on in

northeastern Mindanao, the traders were local merchants from the western side of the island. It is

noteworthy to point out that the Tausug language and the Butuanon are closely related. It appears

that the Tausug moved to the western side of the islands at about A.D. 1100 from the general area of

northeastern Mindanao due to the demands of commerce. The distribution of Yueh-type wares in the

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Batangas area was also very limited and concentrated about the area of access into the Taal lake

region where large concentrations of populations probably were during that time. There is no

evidence yet to show what drew the early trade from China into these particular areas and not to

others. The likelihood is that there were large communities - and as a result large markets - in these

places, with established trading relations. Later marine archeological studies have shown that

overseas trade was carried on with particular ports, and from these are connections to other

independent local networks. The local trade network was carried on by native merchants getting their

goods from entrepots, at times for specific customers filling orders as it were.

The few Tang dynasty pieces that arrived in the Philippines were represented by what have been

called Changsa wares from the place where these were made. These include spouted jars with

paneled decorations and flanges on the shoulder, with a greyish glaze; tall bottles with two ears on

the shoulder and another two directly below these at the base. There were many bowls that have

glaze and characterized by very wide and low foot rims or bases. These, however, have not appeared

in systematically excavated sites.

Much more impressive in numbers were the Yueh-type wares, that have been dated to the Five

Dynasties about the 10th to 11th centuries. The so-called Yueh wares were the precursors of high

fired ceramics that started with the discovery of the kind of clay called, kaolin, which can be fired to

about 1300 degrees centigrade to produce vitreous wares; and the development of the cross-draft

kiln that can produce this kind of high temperature. During the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-906) changes

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took place in China that affected the whole of Southeast Asia when Chang-an, the capital, became

one of the centers of international trade. Traders from all over the world came to know of the high

quality of the high fired ceramics produced in China and realized the trade potentials of these.

Chinese ceramics begun to be traded widely since these were found to be superior to those produced

in other lands. The initial impact of this trade begun to be felt in the Philippine archipelago at about

A.D. 1000, when Yueh-type wares were brought in into the Butuan City and Laurel, Batangas.

These early trade ware usually had a single greyish color. The body of the wares were of two

kinds: one that has a color range from buff, low-fired, chalky, soft and powdery. The designs were

impressed with some probably incised. The lips of the vessels have incised vertical lines. The vessels

appeared to have been glazed with a color that range from olive, light buff to reddish brown. The

second group were truly high-fired and vitreous. The body wall colors range from whitish, buff, light

grey to light brownish orange. The designs were generally incised lines with a predominantly lotus

motif. Combed lines were very common, as well as fluted petals, and panels of incised floral

curvilinear designs. The handles and loop ears of the vessels were often given single or double

vertical lines. One of the most characteristic of the vessels is a bowl with a thick folded over lip with a

one-color grey glaze.

In the Butuan area, the trade ceramics were with local earthenware, bone, iron, bronze, antler,

netweights, wood, and large amounts of shells. Distinctive non-porcelaneous wares from southern

Thailand and Vietnam were also excavated along with the Chinese wares. The local earthenware were

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not at all notably embellished. On the other hand, in the Laurel, Batangas site where similar Chinese

tradeware were recovered, the local earthenware were of different variety. The beauty of decoration

and the many kinds of forms still reflect the character of the pottery of the preceding age. The

vessels were provided with red slip and were highly polished. The decorations included some unique

pieces decorated with appliqued spines or studs. Incised and impressed designs were widely used in

both geometric and curvilinear styles. Towards the end of the Metal Age pottery of the areas about

Batangas were among the more beautiful of Philippine earthenware.

Younger in archeological age to the sites in Butuan and Batangas are those found within the city

of Manila itself, and the areas about the Laguna de Bay in the province of Rizal and Laguna.

Excavations within the vicinities of the Sta. Ana parish church in Manila were done by the National

Museum after previous work by others. The site was actually a mound built up by the piling of refuse

during periods when people lived there. The pile of garbage was about 3.27 meters deep down to the

ground water level. The first top layer which was less than one meter thick could be dated to the

Spanish period back to about the 16th century. Under this layer were deposits of brackish water

shells, animal bones, pottery sherds, iron slags and fragments of local pottery. The deepest layer of

the excavations has been dated to A.D. 1095. The most significant date that came out of this

archeological site is placed at A.D. 1175 which gives the age of an association of materials that

included blue and white trade ceramics - the earliest date in the Philippines for the appearance of

blue under the glaze in Chinese tradeware.

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The locally made earthenware recovered here is part of a potting practice that is widespread in

the provinces of Rizal, Laguna and Batangas, that developed on to the later periods. Already, the

influence of Chinese ceramic forms is evident in the local earthenware shapes. Apart from the vessels

usually found like globular pots, jugs, jars, and so on, the most noteworthy form that was

characteristic of this period was a rather squat pouring vessel with one spout, a lug on the opposite

side of this, and a flange on the widest diameter of the body to reinforce the joint of the upper and

lower halves. Later types become sphere-like in form.

A major archeological work on a succeeding period after the Sta. Ana excavations was that done

in Calatagan, Batangas. Twenty nine sites were recorded here, eleven of which were fully worked.

These burial sites yielded more than 1500 graves that belong to the same assemblage dating to A.D.

1400 to 1500. The sites contained ceramics from the kilns of south China, along with high-fired

ceramics from Thailand and Vietnam and local earthenware. About 17 percent of the recoveries of

ceramics from this site were Thai, most of which were jarlets. The pieces from Vietnam were lesser in

number. Both the Thai and Vietnamese trade ware begun to become rare in Philippine archeological

sites by A.D. 1600.

The earthenware from these excavations were very distinctive. These were ordinarily provided

with a red slip and were well polished. The bottoms of the globular pots were often pushed in to make

them more stable when placed down. Another unique form is the squash shape given to many

vessels. Another character of this pottery complex is the use of burnishing lines for decorative

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purposes. Although not as exhuberant as the pottery of the preceding age, the pieces in Calatagan

were also decorated with incised, and impressed designs. Similar practices in pot-making seemed to

have spread even to the island of Mindoro. Even by this time the effect of the large numbers of

tradeware that flooded the communities had on the local earthenware was being felt. There is a

greater prestige and demand for the high-fired ceramics such that these were slowly replacing

earthenware in many daily use and more specially in the rituals. The beautiful pottery of the Metal

Age is no longer evident.

The effect of Asian tradeware on local pottery was very marked in the materials that emerged

from the Balingasay site in Bolinao, Pangasinan. The high-fired ceramics recovered here were mostly

dated to the 13th to the 15th centuries, and were associated with local pottery, gold ornaments,

bronze and iron artifacts. There were 24 earthenware pieces excavated, and not one was a globular

pot which was common in all other sites. All the pieces of pottery were in forms copied from Asian

ceramics and appeared to have been made to replace these highly valued pieces. The vessels came

as bowls with ring feet, two eared jarlets, footed dishes, plates and burial jars. Of note is that among

the tradeware recovered not one was a blue and white piece. More interesting were the gold pieces

found in the graves. Apart from the gold cog-toothed beads, combs and wires, there were gold dental

places. Most startling of all were the gold fish scale-like plates and peggings embedded into the

enamel of the frontal teeth of the dead.

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From this time on the number of archeological sites dating to later periods are far too many to

enumerate with even brief descriptions. Many more are the sites accidentally or illegally excavated

that remain unrecorded. The presence of Asian tradeware specially those of the Chinese show the

intensity of the overseas trade and the complex market networks that criss-crossed the islands,

through water and land. Although the kinds of goods that went through these networks have been

shown by those recovered from land sites, it was only recently that trade goods were recovered from

under the sea with the growing knowledge and capability in the field of marine archeology.

Although a number of shipwrecks have been reported since the early 1960’s, the first systematic

marine archeological project was only successfully completed in 1980. This was done off the island of

Marinduque towards Gaspar islet. Here the practically intant cargo of a trading ship was found at a

depth of about 40 meters. Through an unknown calamity the ship sunk with a cargo of porcelain

dishes with blue under the glaze, saucers, bowls jarlets, powder boxes, spice containers, stoneware

jars and jarlets; and some one-color wares. There were also iron skillets, earthenware stoves, ballast

stones and some wooden objects. There was one copper ring with a red coral setting. The

assemblage could be dated through the ceramics as between A.D. 1500 and 1600, and was probably

coming from the Chinese port of Swatow to trade in central Philippines when it sunk before it could

unload its cargo. Unfortunately, no trace of the ship itself was found.

Another important shipwreck was found off the town of Puerto Galera in the island of Mindoro at

a depth of about 20 meters. A similar assemblage of materials was found here as those found in

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Marinduque, and apparently again from the port of Swatow. Stoneware jars; blue and white porcelain

plates, dishes, jarlets and a jar; and a Thai kalong jar, the usual ballast stones and others were

recovered. The most important items to be retrieved from under the sea in this site were pieces of

the ship timber. These were parts of the hull that showed that the planks were joined edge to edge by

means of pegs and lashed together through the raised lugs on the inner sides of the planks. This type

of ship architecture was typical of that prevalent in Southeast Asia before the advent of western ship

types. In fact this boat was built in a way similar to that boat excavated in Butuan dating to A.D. 320,

except that it was smaller. There were indications that the boat sunk due to some fire on board that

left carbon deposits on the stoneware and porcelain later retrieved from the sea. The nature and

disposition of the cargo suggested that the items were obtained for distribution to specific owners as

in retail trade within a network that included patron-client relationships. Puerto Galera it seemed was

an important port of call by Chinese traders who indulged in wholesale trade or consignments with

the local retail trade handled by local merchants for servicing other islands and interiors.

There are numerous reports of sunken trade vessels off the southern coast of the archipelago

that indicate the routes used by the marine merchants. One that is often used going south follows the

coast of Palawan. The Royal Captain shoals off the southern end of the islands, named after an

English ship wrecked there, have yielded cargoes of Swatow ceramics, glass beads, iron skillets,

stoneware and others, from other ships that sunk there. Remains of later shipping including galleons

have been reported that evidenced the expansion of Asian trade into the American continent during

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the 17th century. Suspected galleon wrecks have been pinpointed in the Verde Islands and the

Lubang island off the western coast of Batangas province. The galleon San Diego constructed in Cebu

and later sank off Fortune Island near Batangas during a battle with the Dutch in 1600, for instance

was excavated with a large amount of its contents recovered - a virtual time capsule. The Spanish

introduced new elements in trade which likewise was reflected in the emergence of new sea routes

apart from the existing ones and the number increased as other nations specially from the West

entered the circle of modern trade in Asia.

THE CERAMIC AGE SOCIETY

By about A.D. 1000 complex societies would already have evolved in the Philippine archipelago

so that continuing and established trade through long distances over water became possible. In

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specific key areas, there were large concentrations of populations although still based on domestic

economy, on the other hand, were also engaged in marketing activities that included different

networks both local and overseas. The communities that built up along estuaries, floodplains,

lakeshores, coasts and other similar areas would have grown in size. There would be a wider dispersal

of inland communities; which in turn would affect the environment. More and areas would have been

brought under cultivation, and a recession of the forest line would result from this. In well protected

bays, coves, estuarines where ships could lie in safely, ports developed where the nuclei of foreign

trade are located and radiated. Among such township thus far located by archeological works are the

estuarine and coastal areas of Northern Luzon about Aparri and Ballesteros.

The tip of Pangasinan about the area of Bolinao and up along the Balingasay river were centers

of population. In the Manila area, to a large extent the land was low and swampy and the well

populated area was along the river in the old Lamayan area presently known as Sta. Ana. Lamayan

served as entrepot to the large numbers of communities along the Laguna de Bay fringes like Tanay,

Pila, Bay and many others. There were many places in Batangas, specially in the Calatagan Peninsula

and across the Verde Island Passage to Mindoro about Puerto Galera. In the extreme southern Luzon

in the Bicol regions there appeared to be large population centers in many of the estuarine areas and

markedly so in Sorsogon. Across the San Bernardino Straits, northern Samar appeared to have large

concentrations of people to attract foreign trade goods in large quantities.

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The city of Cebu itself was a major port with probably among the densest populated areas. The

area about the coast of Iloilo and the City itself appeared to have been well peopled by this time as

the area about the coast of Panay. Southeastern Negros as well as the south and eastern coast of

Bohol showed evidences of foreign trade indicating nucleation of communities. Across the Bohol sea,

in northeastern Mindanao, the areas about Butuan and up the Agusan river appeared to have well

established population centers that were quite widespread considering the distribution of ceramics

materials of very high quality and early age.

To a large extent, in fact, where the present metropolitan areas arenow located, these likewise

were the places of population nucleation during the end of the Metal Age and the succeeding periods.

The presence of quite a few evidences of gold processing and jewelry-making in the general area, and

up the Agusan river would make this area a distinct market place with patrons from overseas apart

from the local ones. All along the coast of Mindanao to the tip of Zamboanga would be settlement

areas that served the continuous movements of people specially about A.D. 1100 that saw

populations move from northeastern to southwestern Mindanao and sustained by an intense trade

with Asian ceramics as a major commodity, and indicated by the presence of these artifacts, and the

close similarity between the Butuanon language with that of the Tausug.

The pattern all over the islands was the same with respect to the orientation of the settlements

along waterways. The major centers remained near the coast, serving as entrepots for the

populations in the interiors, using the mountain drainage systems as the lines of contact with the

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interior groups. The different groups along a single waterway network composed one market network.

At times along the fringes of this single network there were overlaps with other networks of trade as

when anindividual would have trading partners in at least two networks.

The overseas trade took advantage of the existence of these local trade networks and made use

of these systems in order to distribute their own goods specially into the interior, and where there

were no good port facilities where their ships could berth while conducting their business. Thus,

systems of wholesale were adapted where the Chinese merchants for instance would wait a number

of months for their clients to dispose in retail the bulk of items they have received.

The quantity of Asian trade materials appeared to be more in the southern parts of the country,

specially about the coasts of the central Philippines and southern Luzon. Present marine archeological

evidence indicated the existence of trade routes that ran parallel to the archipelago on the western

side, with incursions into the central Philippine areas. It would seem that the existence of open-water

type large Southeast Asian boats as those found in the Butuan area inhibited the intrusion of foreign

trade into the local networks unless the local systems were used, thus developing only specific ports

of call by Asian vessels. The existence, too, of the more concentrated markets in the land areas south

of the Philippines - Indonesia, the Malaysian Peninsula and further west into Thailand, worked toward

the movement of Chinese trade more into these areas so that a great deal more of trade activities

went on at the southern end of the Philippine archipelago.

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An indication of this situation was shown by the number of Thai ceramics found in this country.

Archeological evidences showed that there were more Thai high-fired wares found in the southern

Philippines. The number progressively became less as one goes north, and in fact, these became

extremely rare as one goes through northern Luzon. In Indonesia this type of ceramics were quite

common in Sulawesi. In northern Luzon, less Asian ceramics were found than in the southern islands

even in terms of Chinese tradeware.

During this period, all indications pointed to only two areas in the country where Asian trade

appeared to have taken place earlier than other places. These two places were the western coast of

the province of Batangas and the northeastern coast of Mindanao. Both these places have yielded

high-fired ceramics that could be dated between A.D. 1000 to 1100 or earlier. Included in these

materials were ceramics that could be ascribed to the Arab world, including some vessels of glass.

Very interesting to note, however, was the wide disparity between the kinds of local pottery found in

these two sites. In the Batangas sites the local earthenware were at the classic terminal.

      Metal Age types which included the sophisticated presentation dishes with ornate cut-out stands,

goblets, jars that were incised, impressed and appliqued with wide ranges of designs and motifs. The

surfaces were red-slipped and highly polished. Those found in the northeastern Mindanao, however,

were of a quality showing a limited range in form and decoration. It appeared that the two areas

belonged to different local trade networks, but were linked to similar or the same Asian trade sources.

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By this time the intensive wet-rice agriculture was well established in the lowlands and

floodplains as the economic base of the larger population centers. With the increasing contacts with

China and its metal industry the impetus for the development of the intensive agricultural complexes

was likewise enhanced. The shift to the use of draft animals and the plow complex made the system

more efficient leading to optimal production of rice which would have already gained a prestige

position as staple. Different strains of rice, too, would have begun to be adopted to dry regimes and

introduced in swiddens in the highlands, where this was intercropped with other cultigens. Unlike

communities in the interior uplands, food gathering would have become minimal as supplementary

food source.

Animal husbandry, on the other hand, would have become important and growing in scale, and

in fact would have been considered an index for economic wealth and status among the the different

societies. Raising of animals, specially of water buffaloes, would have been an adjunct of the growth

of wet-rice agriculture. These animals became items of wealth important not only for farming

purposes but for trade, prestige, and probably more sociologically significant, the role these animals

occupy in rituals conducted by the different societies. In many of the archaeological sites that date to

this period, the remains of water buffaloes were very much in evidence.

Quite distinctive, too, of this period is the growth of metalcraft. Among the tremendous amount

of high -fired ceramics found in archeological sites were also some numbers of iron slags. These are

shallow semi-hemispherical residues in the making of iron that remained in the bottom of crucibles.

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These slags would suggest a specialization by a segment of the communities then in the production

of metal tools, and the implication that some of the need for metal implements were by then being

supplied by local manufacturers, aside from merely reworking ingots brought in through marine

trade. The production also implied larger-sized permanent communities considering the demands for

metal items that necessitated the organization of production lines. This also meant larger capital

investments into endeavors other than agriculture.

The economy is basically domestic in nature, still. Each household would be providing for

individual needs as a whole. There would be a great deal of barter between social units with regards

to goods they do not themselves produce, e.g. marine against forest products. It is not very clear

whether there existed a market based on the use of money as medium of exchange. To be sure coins

of Chinese origin have been found in archeological sites, but whether or not these have been used in

terms of purchasing goods was not quite clear. Later Spanish records still documented barter as the

usual method of exchange between the Chinese and local traders. Ethnographic data still showed this

method being used. It was highly probable that market places existed where transactions are carried

out at specified times and frequency adapted to the needs of the various communities. These

markets rotated through different known places and followed definite schedules. The events then

became highly socialized occasions where people congregate. These markets then provided the

intermesh between the domestic economy and the exchange systems external to this.

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      The overlapping networks of interchanges between different communities on the coastal and

estuarine areas and through to the inland communities could be seen from the range in quatity, kind

and in time of the trade ceramics. It was very common to see Ming dynasty ceramics, for instance, as

heirloom pieces or used domestically by households of ethnic groups in area in the mountains that

were difficult of access, and interred with their dead in traditional burial grounds. During this

protohistoric period contacts were maintained principally through the medium of the forms of

markets that prevailed interconnecting different adjacent communities.

It is probable from the postulated levels of social and economic integration of the various

populations, that while the societies were basically egalitarian in character, there would have been

growth in the political aspect due to the larger community sizes and the fact that the growing market

systems would have brought the different communities into direct contact with one another. There

were analogous ethnographic examples even during the present times where societal groups in the

level of swiddening integration have developed group dynamics where related households were

grouped for concerted action even for internal needs through the intervention of an assertive

individual often defined by age, sagacity, economic wealth, and so on, and supported by sanctions

imposed by the community. Positions like these would have polarized further making the leadership

role more defined, backed by kin members who were further reinforced by the kindred and the

ramifications through their own kindred and affines. The maintenance of ethnic boundaries, too,

contributed to these social polarizations about an accepted spokesman or occasional leader.

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Further in the development are the alliances forged between different groups for larger arenas

of action, as when two smaller communities would agree to an occasional understanding to unite

before a confrontation with a larger group. Usually alliances of this sort take place between kin

groups or at least between the same ethnic aggrupation against another ethnic group. An example of

this was when the peoples of the Zambales area allied with the peoples of Pangasinan against the

Ilocano populations to the north of what is now the province of La Union. Situations similar to this call

for the exercise of politics in a level very different from those that existed before would have existed

in highly populate regions, and all these went beyond the principles of kinship as the principle for

organization of the members. Expediency, leadership and the intimacy of intergroup interactions,

transactions and territorial affinities could have dictated the parameters of the alliances.

Certainly, the communities specially about the coastal areas with larger carrying capacities in

some areas of the islands would have developed settlements characterized by populations large

enough to necessitate political integrations of this level. Witness the situation between Cebu and

Mactan during the arrival of the first Spaniards in 1521, when there was a stand-off in leadership

between heads of the communities in Cebu and the island of Mactan.

This politicalization of certain segments of the Philippine societies achieved a more complex

degree in the southern part of the archipelago with the introduction of Islam together with the adjunct

sociological and political structures that go with this; and superimposed on earlier Indian influence

with the ramifications of status positions and roles reinforced by Hindu-Buddhistic beliefs that filtered

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in. The assimilation of the structures may not have been exactly as introduced but most of these

would have been modified. Even in oral literature among the extant ethnic groups, reference have

been made to status positions which are more nominal in character than what existed in reality. Much

have been made in referring to prestige positions that may not have any legitimization in fact, e.g.

the rajas, sultans and datus positions that had no supporting structures, as those that have been

found among the peoples of Palawan. Nevertheless, the social and political structures among the

peoples of the Philippines influenced by Islam were the most developed in terms of organization.

Elsewhere in the islands much of the population centers were political enclaves operating in

particular catchment areas. These groupings are interdigitated with other regions through the

medium of economic interactions. The larger communities through the sheer size of the market

potentials would attract larger volumes of trade, and would also thus become political centers where

probably ward systems would operate where lesser leaders are loosely structured into supportive

groups under the leadership of a more powerful individual.

In this state the islands of the Philippines were to be come upon by the first explorers from the

west; and the written history of the Philippines by the Spanish chroniclers was to begin.

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