The historiography of early Philippine settlements is the academic discipline concerned with the studies, sources, critical methods and interpretations used by scholars to understand the history of settlements in early Philippine history.
"[1] The study of early Philippine settlements is often hampered[2][3][4][5] by the fact that the modern political entity known as the Philippines did not actually exist prior to the arrival of Spanish colonial powers in the late sixteenth century.
[3] Scott's review has become a seminal academic work on the study of early Philippine history, having been reviewed early on by a panel of that era's most eminent historians and folklorists including Teodoro Agoncillo, Horacio de la Costa, Marcelino Foronda, Mercedes Grau Santamaria, Nicholas Zafra and Gregorio Zaide.
[7] Scott's 1968 review was acknowledged by Laura Lee Junker when she conducted her own comprehensive 1998 review of primary sources regarding archaic Philippine polities,[3] and by F. Landa Jocano in his Anthropological analysis of Philippine Prehistory.
Sources Junker[3] considers particularly relevant to the study of early Philippine settlements include: This section provides an incomplete list of key figures in the historiography of early Philippine settlements, including: early chroniclers from before and immediately after Spanish contact; historians from the Spanish colonial era; "modernist" and "nationalist" historians from the 20th century; and finally contemporary-era critical historians and historiographers.