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9000 year old de-fleshing ritual revealed in the Philippines

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1 inShare Archaeologists have recently published in the International Journal of Osteoarcheology, a f ull report on the discovery of early Holocene burials while excavating in the Ille cave, Palawan, Philippines, where the bones of one individual bear the marks of a complex de-f leshing ritual. T he island of Palawan, situated between Borneo to the south and the Philippine archipelago to the north and east, is important f or its links with the Sundaic region of Southeast Asia. Many cave sites are known f rom the island, including Tabon Cave, which has human remains dating to c. 45,000 BP and f urther north in Callao Cave in Cagayan with the earliest human remains in the Philippines to 67, 000 BP (see Mijares etal Journal of Human Evolution 59 (2010) 123-132.

Ille is a solution cave and rockshelter at the base of a c. 75m-high karst tower near the village of New Ibajay, El Nido. T he site comprises east and west rockshelter mouths, opening onto a relatively f lat platf orm of silt loam, in a setting of light woodland. In 1998 the National Museum of the Philippines began a longterm survey and excavation programme in the region, including Ille and other nearby caves and their surroundings.

Wellpreserved f ragment s of bones

One of the Cre matio n b urial as fo und . Ille c ave s ite in the b ac kg ro und . Imag e s : V. Paz & H. Le wis most exciting discoveries by Myra Lara and Victor Paz of the Archaeological Studies Program of the University of the Philippines with H. Lewis and W. Solheim II of the School of Archaeology of the University College Dublin (Solheim is also f rom the UP Diliman) was the discovery and excavation of well-preserved f ragments of bones, likely of a young or middle-aged woman, in the cave of Ille. C14 dating has show that her bones are between 9,000 to 9,400 years old. T he burial was sandwiched between shell middens f rom the late Pleistocene archaeological sequences to the early Holocene [96639951cal bp (OxA-14899) and 1047610687cal bp (OxA-14592)] and contained evidence of human activity, including hearths, charcoal, shell, burnt and unburnt animal bones and stone tools.

In total, f ive human burials bearing a similar pattern of modif ications and deposition were discovered, each placed in discrete stacks within a small area of less than 8m2 . However, it is C.758, currently the most extensively studied of these burials and the topic of the publication that is causing most excitement.

Unusual marks
T he burial consisted of a shallow cylindrical-shaped f eature approximately 15cm in height and around 23 cm in diameter distinguished f rom the surrounding matrix by the dense concentration of f ragmentary human bone. Examination of the reconstructed individual showed evidence of multi-directional grooves on the lef t tibia and perf orations on the ends of the lef t f ibula that suggest that actions had occurred to the body that are not usually related to the post mortem processing. For example, numerous bone surf ace modif ications were identif ied within the skeletal remains including scrape marks, cut-marks and impact scars, that were all characteristic of damage caused by people in the course of processing the body. Cut-marks occurred as single or grouped linear incisions, predominantly located at points on the bone close to ends which suggests the joints were severed. Impact scars tended to be in discrete areas where a heavy object had impacted on the bone surf ace. T he presence of scrape marks extending across two or more reconstructed f ragments of bone f ractured skeletal elements implied also that def leshing had occurred prior to the bones being smashed. T he presence of striations on the surf aces also indicated that areas of bones struck were already de-f leshed. If the f lesh had been present, it would have sustained the impact, protecting the bones f rom damage.

Final act s of rit ual

It is possible to reconstruct the f inal acts of ritual, as the skinned and def leshed skull, f emur, tibia and arm bones were hammered and smashed with a hammerstone on a stone anvil. T he bones were s c rap e marks (ye llo w b o ld line s ), and p e rc us s io n marks (re d fille d c irc le s ). The s iz e o f the marking s had b e e n e xag g e rate d to re nd e r the m mo re vis ib le . Als o no te the g o o d re p re s e ntatio n o f the c ranium, then collected fe mo ra, fib ulae , rad ii, and ulnae . Frag me nts o r c o njo ining frag me nts we re p ho to g rap he d s e p arate ly with f or cremation s c ale and s imilar lig hting , and the n imag e s we re as s e mb le d e le c tro nic ally. Inte rnatio nal J o urnal o f O s te o arc hae o lo g y and subjected to a temperature that was high enough f or calcination to occur though there are variations in the burn marks which need f urther analysis. T he bone f ragments af ter cremation were collected, cleaned and placed in a container or bag bef ore the f inal deposition or burial. Myra Lara, the f irst author of the paper explained in the IMPHscience website, We really do not have a way of knowing whether they were cleaned; the assumption was made only because there were not much charcoal included in the assemblage.
Co mp o s ite imag e o f the re c o ns truc te d s ke le to n in Co nte xt 758 s ho wing s us taine d c utmarks (re d line s ),

T his elaborate burial ritual of course does not mean that cannibalism happened as it is clear this complex act indicates a sophisticated expression of the groups cosmology, however Dr. Victor Paz adds, .. regarding what happened to the flesh, this is anyones guess. Source: International Journal of Osteoarchaeology Header image: Digitally reconstructed skull in Context 758. (International Journal of Osteoarchaeology) and view of Palawan, Phillipines (wikimedia)

More Inf ormat ion

Lara, M., Paz, V., Lewis, H. and Solheim, W. (2013), Bone Modifications in an Early Holocene Cremation Burial from Palawan, Philippines. Int. J. Osteoarchaeol.. doi: 10.1002/oa.2326 Helen Lewis, Victor Paz, Myra Lara, Huw Barton, Philip Piper, Janine Ochoa,Timothy Vitales, Jane Carlos, Tom Higham, Leee Neri, Vito Hernandez, Janelle Stevenson, Emil Robles, Andrea Ragrario, Rojo Padilla, Wilhelm Solheim and Wilf redo Ronquillo. 2008. Terminal Pleistocene to midHolocene occupation and an early cremation burial at Ille cave , Philippines. Antiquity , 82(316):318-335. Barker, G., Lloyd-Smith, L., Barton, H., et al. 2011. Foraging-farming transitions at the Niah Caves, Sarawak, Borneo . ANTIQUITY, 85(328), 492-509. Palawan Project

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International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 9000 year old defleshing ritual revealed in the Philippines . Past Horizons. October 03, 2013, f rom http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/10/2013/9000year-old-def leshing-ritual-revealed-in-the-philippines

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