PHILIPPINE

HISTORY
The Philippines in Ancient Times
(200,000 B.C. - 1300 A.D.
Early settlers
- Some theories on Philippine prehistory suggest that the Philippines and the rest of the
islands in Southeast Asia may have been sites of human evolution between 200,000
and 30,000 years ago.
- One theory says that during the Ice Age, the waters around what is now the
Philippines fell about 47.5 meters below its level. Because of this, large areas of land
came to the surface and formed “land bridges” to mainland Asia.
➢ The earliest stone tools and animal fossils found in Cagayan Valley in northern
Philippines were dated back to at least 200,000 years ago.

❖ Cagayan Man or homo erectus philippinensis - they had similar characteristics as

the Java Man of Inndonesia and Peking Man of China.

➢ In 1962, a skull cap was discovered in the Tabon caves of Palawan.

- Archeologists learned that man had
been in the Philippines for at least
22,000 years.
- The cave where the Tabon Man was
found was dated back to half a
million years old and had been
occupied fpr more or less 50,000
years.
- A piece of charcoal which dated back to
30,000 years was found which may indicate
the first use of fire in the archipelago.
- They hunted animals such as the pygmy
elephant and rhinoceros. In some languages
of the Philippines, including Tagalog, the
word for elephant is gadya.
- The early Filipinos lived in caves.
- They gathered food from their immediate
environment.
- They wore clothing made from materials that
they got from nature.
- Some 25,000 to 30,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Negritos
(Aeta, Ati, Dumagat), came to the Philippines by crossing the
“land bridges.”
- Were said to have come from the south, by way of Palawan and
Borneo.
- Another Negrito migration occurred a little later by way of Sulu
and Mindanao. These immigrants used blow gun, bow and
arrow.
- They practiced dry agriculture similar to the
- that is practiced today by some hill and mountain hill.
- Their tools were made of stone.
- Their clothing consisted of bark of trees, and their houses were
made of leaves and branches of trees.
- More than 7,000 years ago, long after the ice that
covered the world melted, the resulting rise in the sea
level ushered in the arrival of another group of
people, the Austronesians.
- They came to Southeast Asia by boats from Southern
China.
- They had brown skin (kayumanggi).
- Much later, some of them came to the Philippines from
Indochina and South China also by boats.
- They practiced dry agriculture and produced yams, rice, and
gabe.
- Their clothing consisted of pounded bark of trees with various
printed designs.
- The Kalingas, the Gaddangs, the Apayaos, the Igorots, and the
Ilongots, all indigenous groups of Luzon; the native Visayans;
the Tagbanuas of Palawan, the Bagobos, the Bilaans, the
Manobos, and the Tirurays of Mindanao, are probably
descendants of this group.
The Kalingas The Gaddangs
The Apayaos The Igorots

The Ilongots

Native Visayans
The Tagbanaus of Palawan
The Bagobos
 The Tirurays
of Mindanao

The Bilaans

The Manobos
- By 500 to 800 B.C., the early Filipinos knew how to
make copper and bronze implements.
- They irrigated their rice lands and built the first rice
terraces in the Philippines.
- Another migration allegedly occurred about 300 or
200 B.C., or more than two thousand years ago.
- Those who came to Luzon by way of Palawan and
Mindoro were said to have known irrigation,
smelting, and manufacturing of weapons, tools,
utensils, and ornaments made of iron and other
metals.
- The latest group was more advanced than the
previous immigrants. They had a syllabary or
alphabet that might have come from India.
- These Austronesians were the ancestors of the settlers that traded with ancient China and early southeast
Asian communities. They would later lay the foundations of Islam in Sulu and Mindanao.

❖ These theories of migrations, however, are still subjects of debates. The artifacts are not enough to warrant
definite conclusions about Philippine prehistory.
Economic
life
- The ancient Filipinos practiced agriculture, which was
the main source of their sustenance.
- Rice, coconut, sugar cane, cotton, banana, hemp,
orange, and many kinds of fruits and vegetables were
raised.
- Land cultivation was done in two ways: the kaingin
system and tillage.
Kaingin tillage
system system

- Where the land was cleared by burning - Where the land was plowed and harrowed,
shrubs and bushes. The cleared lands then followed by planting.
was then planted to crops.
Antonio
pigafetta
- The historian of the Magellan expedition which
reached the Philippines in 1521, said that he
found in Sugbu (Cebu) such foodstuffs as sorgo,
orange, garlic, gourd, lemon, coconut, sugar
cane, and many fruits.