Ang Kasaysayan ng Sinaunang Pilipinas
A History of Pre-Spanish Philippines
About 30,000 years ago, a new wave of people called Negritos have reached the Philippines from the more northerly abodes in Central Asia passing through the Indian Subcontinent and reaching the Andamanese Islands. From thereon, the Negritos continued to venture on land bridges reaching Southeast Asia. While some of the Negritos settled in Malaysia, becoming what is now the Orang Asli people, several Negrito tribes continued on to the Philippines through Borneo. They had a Paleolithic culture. They live a nomadic lifestyle, roaming the forests and living in crude dwellings consisting of leaves and sticks. But they were skillfully adept in using the bow and arrow as a primary defense weapon. They also gathered wild plants for consumption.
European explorers called them Negritos as the diminutive for Negro, or little black person, referring to their small stature. They were mistakenly thought to be originated from Africa because of their similar appearance with Africans. However, the origins of the Negritos is still highly debated until now.
Possible origins of the Negritos
Many experts believe that the Andamanese islanders have a common ancestry with the Negritos and it is believed that they have been isolated by the waves of Asian and Indo-Aryan migrations for thousands of years. The claim that Andamanese pygmoids more closely resemble Africans than Asians in their cranial morphology in a 1973 study added some weight to this theory before genetic studies pointed to a closer relationship with Asians.
may provide their probable origins
However, another school of thought believed that the Negritos have closed affinity with the African pygmies and Australo-Melanesians. Other more recent studies have shown closer craniometric affinities to Egyptians and Europeans than to Sub Saharan populations such as that of African Pygmies. Walter Neves’ study of the Lagoa Santa people had the incidental correlation of showing Andamanese as classifying closer to Egyptians and Europeans than any Sub Saharan population. Multiple studies also show that Negritos from Southeast Asia to New Guinea share a closer cranial affinity with Australo-Melanesians. Further evidence for Asian ancestry is in craniometric markers such as sundadonty, shared by Asian and Negrito populations.
as means of transportation (click picture for more info)
After the Ice Age, the land bridges melt down and the sea level has increased and that the only way of migration, thus the only way of migration left is through a dugout proa. A typical proa can be seen at the Manunggul Jar, a burial jar found in Palawan.
The Nesiots reached the islands
About 3000 BC, a loose confederation of peoples known as ‘Nesiots’ ( Proto-Malays according to Jean Buxton), from what today is Indonesia, came to the Philippines. They were to become the ancestors of the present-day Luzon and Mindanao hill tribes. There were two waves of successive Nesiot immigration. The first wave saw a people who have light complexions, aquiline noses, thin lips, and deep-set eyes. The second wave of migration were shorter and heavier in physique, having darker complexion, thick lips, large noses, and heavy jaws.
The Austronesian Migration
Starting 4000-2000 BC Austronesian groups descended from Yunnan Plateau in China and settled in what is now the Philippines by sailing using balangays or by traversing land bridges coming from Taiwan. Most of these Austronesians primarily used the Philippines as a pit-stop to the outlying Pacific islands or to the Indonesian archipelago further south.
Those who were left behind became the ancestors of the present-day Filipinos. The Cagayan valley of northern Luzon contains large stone tools as evidence for the hunters of the big game of the time: the elephant-like stegodon, rhinoceros, crocodile, tortoise, pig and deer. The Austronesians pushed the Negritos to the mountains, while they occupied the fertile coastal plains.
~ to be continued ~
JP the Historian 