Archaeology of the Philippines

Very little archaeological work was carried out in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period, even though the Spaniards were interested in the people of the islands from an ethnographic and linguistic perspective.

Explorers such as Fedor Jagor, Joseph Montano and Paul Ray, and Jose Rizal, occasionally reported visiting sites, but the only detailed investigation was carried out by French archaeologist Alfred Marche in 1881.

Commissioned by the French government, Marche conducted systematic surveys of burial caves on two islands, accumulating a large collection of antiquities which is now held in the Musée de l'Homme in Paris.

Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States in 1898, and the American colonial administration actively encouraged the anthropological study of the archipelago.

Various private collectors and amateur archaeologists also accumulated significant amounts of material, but Beyer lamented that "none of this work was very scientifically done".

Beyer opened substantial excavations in the area of the dam, employing up to seventy workers a day for six months.

[2] In 1965, Fox had found a pot from the late Neolithic Period called the Yawning Jarlet at his time at the Tabon Caves.

One of Evangelista's famous discovery in the Philippines was the excavation in 1957 of a neolithic jar burial site in Nueva Ecija in Luzon.

Inspired by Fox and Beyer, Jocano brought New World terminology by using previous data to the prehistory of the Philippines.

[48][49][50][51] Scholars such as Milton Osborne emphasise that despite these beliefs being originally from India, they reached the Philippines through Southeast Asian cultures with Austronesian roots.

[52] Artifacts[verification needed] reflect the iconography of the Vajrayana Buddhism and its influences on the Philippines's early states.

Before the discovery of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription in the early 1990s, anthropologist, the richness of historical clues which could be derived from these porcelain artifacts led scholars to use the term "protohistory.

The Laguna Copperplate Inscription (above) found in 1989 suggests Indian cultural influence in the Philippines by the 9th century AD, likely through Hinduism in Indonesia, prior to the arrival of European colonial empires in the 16th century.
The Laguna Copperplate Inscription (above) found in 1989 suggests Indian cultural influence in the Philippines by the 9th century AD, likely through Hinduism in Indonesia , prior to the arrival of European colonial empires in the 16th century.
The balangay replica docked at CCP Harbor Manila after its South East Asian expedition.
The Santo Niño de Cebú , one of the oldest Christian relics in the Philippines .
The attire of a Tagalog Maharlika nobility depicts in the Boxer Codex .
Ruins of the Cagsawa church.
Calle Crisologo in Vigan at night.