Philippine Prehistory

Course Developers
Percival S. Gabriel
Rhinalou Cervantes- Salamat
 This is a skull cap discovered in 1962 in Tabon Cave, Palawan.

Describe the Tabon Cave skull. What

predominant feature of the skull of
humans is present in the Tabon Cave skull,
though it is only a cap? This feature would
differentiate the skull cap from the skull of
four-legged animals. (If you have a pet dog,
what differentiates the skull of the dog
from the skull of that found in Tabon cave?)

Image: http://www.alearningfamily.com/main/tabon-man-first-human-philippines
 Several stones believed to have been intentionally chipped into weapons or
tools were found on the same cave on the same rock strata with the same age
subjected into carbon dating. These were believed to have been made by
humans.

Describe the stone

implements found in Tabon
Cave. What feature of the
human hand indentifies the
hand which chipped the
stone tools found in Tabon
Cave? This feature could
sufficiently identify that
those tools were made by
human hand?
Image: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Upper-row-archaeological-fl-akes-from-Late-Pleistocene-layers-of-
archaeological-sites-in_fig2_290508013
 Dr. Henry Otley Beyer
• born on June 13, 1833 in
Edgewood, Iowa.
• first interest in the Philippines was
sparked in 1904 when he visited the
Philippine exhibit in St. Lois,
Missouri.
• graduated in Chemistry at Iowa
State University, took up his Master
in Chemistry at the University of
Denver.

Image: http://totallyfreeimages.com/170119/Henry-Otley-Beyer,-standing-with-hand-on-ceramic-pot
Dr. Henry Otley Beyer
• volunteered to go to the
Philippines to avail of the program
to teach Filipinos during the
American colonization.
•lived in the Cordilleras with the
Ifugaos and married Lingaya
Gambuk, the daughter of an Ifugao
chief
Dr. Robert B. Fox
• born on May 11, 1918, in
Galveston, Texas. 
• earned his Bachelor of Arts in
Anthropology from the University of
Southern California in 1941; his
Master in Arts in Anthropology from
the University of Texas in 1944; and
his Ph.D. in the same field from the
University of Chicago in 1954.

Image: http://www.elaput.com/tabnrfox.jpg
Dr. Robert B. Fox
•interest in the Philippines led him
to work in the National Museum in
time when this great find landed on
his assignment.
• became chief anthropologist of the
Philippine National Museum
 Dr. F. Landa Jocano

• born on February 5, 1930 in Cabuatan ,

Iloilo.
• a product of public school in Iloilo but
ran away to Manila for his parents could
hardly support his schooling.
• worked his way to graduate at Arellano
High School but went back to Iloilo to
finish his Bachelor of Arts degree in
Central Philippine University in Iloilo in
1957.

Image: http://philippinesreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Felipe-Landa-Jocano.jpg
 Dr. F. Landa Jocano

•It was in Iloilo when he got interested

in Philippine folklore, which led him to
write to Fox and offered him a job at the
National Museum as a janitor.
• his typing skills were far better useful
than his cleaning skills that he became a
part of the museum’s typing pool.
 Dr. F. Landa Jocano

•This exposed him to museum’s data

and led him to write about Philippine
legends surrounding plant and animal
life which were serialized in Manila
Times and which the Department of
Education got interested to include
them in their high school teaching
supplement Diwang Kayumanggi.
 Dr. F. Landa Jocano

• was promoted from being a janitor to

research aid to scientist 1. He got a
grant to study at the University of
Chicago where he earned his masters
and doctorate in Anthropology.
• After a few teaching stints while taking
his Ph.D. in the University of Chicago, he
went back to the Philippines to teach at
the University of the Philippines. At that
time, the Tabon Cave finds have already
been a breakthrough in Philippine
anthropology.
 Dr. William Henry Scott
• historian who despised to be called an
anthropologist. Scott was born on July 10,
1921 in Detroit, Michigan to a Protestant
family.
• interest in archeology came when he
earned a scholarship in an Episcopalian-
affiliated Cranbrook School in Michigan.
• was not able to pursue his interest yet
when joined the US Navy in 1942 and
fought during the Second World War until
1946.
• joined the Episcopalian mission in China
where taught and studied in Shanghai,
Yangchow and Beijing until 1949. Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/widi/William_Henry_Scott_(historian
 Dr. William Henry Scott
• was a victim of alien deportation from
China after it fell in the hands of the
communists in 1949.
• went to Yale University in 1951 where
he enrolled in Chinese language and
literature and took up his masters in
Columbia University.
 Dr. William Henry Scott
•was recalled back to military service in
the Korean War and after less than a year
of service, he tried to go back to his
teaching career, this time, in Japan, but
accepted a teaching career in the
Philippines where he was assigned in St.
Mary’s School in Sagada under the
Episcopalian mission in Sagada, Mountain
province, where he taught English and
history.
 Dr. William Henry Scott
• earned his Ph.D. at the University of
Santo Tomas which his dissertation
Prehispanic Source Materials for the
Study of Philippine History was published
in 1968.
• This book was revised in 1984,
incorporating more assumed prehispanic
materials that he debunked including
the Code of Kalantiaw.