PREHISTORY

What is Prehistory?

• Events occurred before the existence of written records 

• SOURCES - Fossils

PHILIPPINES SOURCES

• Homo Luzonensis

  • Where: Cave site of callao

  • Age: 134k

  • Material: human metatarsal & human fossils (hand, foot bone & teeth)

• Tabon Man Skull Cap

  • Where: Tabon Cave, Palawan

  • Age: 14,500

  • Material: Skull Cap

• Tabon tibia

  • Where: Tabon Cave, Palawan

  • Age: 47k (45,000 BCE)

  • Material: leg bone

Old stone age (paleolithic) - 450,000 to 6,000 BCE

• Hunting & gathering society

• No permanent settlement/nomadic life

• Crude stone tools (flake tools, made from cobble pebble stone)

  • FOSSIL - Molar of stegodon (stegodon luzonensis) 

New stone age (neolithic) - 6,000 to 2,000 BCE

• Permanent settlement

• Development of agriculture

• Domestication of animals

• Pottery tradition - for storage/burial purposes 

  • Manunggul Jar (jars for the dead)

• Smooth stone tools with form and shape

  • Bark Cloth beater

    • Where: Arku, Cave Cagayan

    • Age: 1255-605 BCE

    • Material: stone

Metal Age - 2,000 BCE to 1000 CE

• Use of metal (gold, iron, copper) for jewelry, tools and weapons

• Golden age of pottery

Age of contract with the great traditions of Asia - 1,000 CE

• Trade contact with chinese

• Chinese came during amihan 

First people in the PHILIPPINES - Henry Otley Beyer THEORY

• Negritos, Indonesians & Malay

• Myth: Wave of Migration theory (FALSE, DEBUNKED)

  • Negritos (Aborigines - first settlers) - of the philippines and first race

  • Followed by Indoensians

  • Then Malay

    • Most civilized group 

    • Introduced: metal crafting, pottery-making, weaving, beads & bracelets

First people in the PHILIPPINES - TRUTHS

• TRUTH: homo luzonensis are the earliest human species in the Philippines

• TRUTH: Filipino culture was influenced by austronesians

First people in the PHILIPPINES - Austronesian CONTRIBUTIONS

• Pottery: palayok

• Use of dugout canoes (Koro-Koro - bankang pandagat, pandigma, o sakayan ng datu o sultan) (Balanghay)

• Rice cultivation & Nipa huts

• Language - 700 languages, 160 in the PH

  • Disyllabic language