THE GENESIS OF CAVITE
In
terms of geological time, the Earth, the fifth largest planet in the solar
system, is about 4.5 billion years old.
Thanks to the radiocarbon-14 dating system, it is now possible to
determine the age of the Earth, including meteorites, rocks, fossils, of men
and animals, and other forms of matter.
The oldest shell fossils have been traced back to about 600 million
years, a mere fraction of geological time; the oldest continent rock on Earth
is about 3.7 billion years old; and the oldest rocky material from the Earth’s
mantle about 4.5 billion years old.
Meteorites or masses of stone or metal that have fallen to the Earth
from outer space have been found to be invariably about 4.5 billion years old,
the same as the age of the Earth.
Prehistory is the period of time from the
appearance of man about 1,000,000 years ago during the first glacial period to
the discovery of writing and making of written records, or about 5,000
B.C. It is evident that prehistory (one
million less 5,000 years) is a mere fraction of time compared to that period
from the birth of the Earth about 4.5 billion years ago to 1,000,000 B.C.
As integral part of the Philippine
archipelago, Cavite has its roots embedded in the very remote past. According to the geologists, there was a
time when the archipelago itself did not exist because the 7,100 islands
comprising it today formed the continuous landmass from Batanes to Tawi-tawi. In fact, the Philippines was originally a
part of the great Asian continent.
Million of years ago, Cavite formed part,
a small but a significant part, of the land bridges starting from South China
down to Burma and Siam (now Thailand), then to Malaysia, the former Dutch East
Indies, the Sundra Platform, Borneo, Luzon, and finally ending up on
Formosa. The China Sea then was shallow
and the continental shelf surrounding it was dry and passable from end to
end. The numerous islands that we see
on the map today rose high above the water level. Similarly, Asia at that time appeared as one giant landmass
extending to the whole of the Far East and the East Indies on the southwest,
and Australia on the far southeast. The
China Sea looked like an oversized land-locked body of water – a mere lake.
During the glacial epoch thick ice
formations covered the major portions of the Earth’s surface, especially the
mountaintops and ridges, and other places of high altitude. About two billion years ago during the pre-Cambrian
period a series of volcanic activity caused the information of igneous rocks,
followed by the appearance of microscopic algae and some protozoa. Eight hundred million years later, in the
course of intermittent volcanic eruptions, mountains were formed containing
deposits of iron ore. There was also an
abundance of lime-secreting algae and sponges.
After another seven hundred million years, this time during the Cambrian
period, the first stage of Paleozoic, the shallow seas covering much of the
land surface formed sedimentary rocks and caused the development of marine
invertebrate life.
The development of the Earth is one of
the continuous progressions. From the
formation of sedimentary rocks and the appearance of marine life, about
550,000,000 years ago, to the development of modern man, circa 50,000 B.C., the
Earth experienced the following startling changes: (1) the shallow receded,
causing the appearance of a few primitive fishlike vertebrates, and the
formation of limestones, lead, and zinc ores about 480,000,000 years ago during
the Ordovician period; (2) scorpions, reputedly the first animals to live on
land, appeared about 390,000,000 years ago (Silurian period); (3) primitive
plant life developed on dry continents about 350,000,000 years ago (Devonian
period); (4) coal beds from luxuriant plant life in swampy forests were formed
about 300,000,000 years ago;(5) reptiles and coniferous plants appeared about
215,000,000 years ago (Permian period); (6) dinosaurs and primitive cycads
appeared about 190,000,000 years ago (Triassic period or Mesozoic); (7)
mammals, the ancestral horse and primates appeared about 60,000,000 ago (Eocene
of the Tertiary period); (8) mountains were formed about 30,000,000 years ago
(Miocene of Tertiary period); and (9) early man appeared about 1,000,000 B.C.
(Quaternary period or the last period of the Cenozoic era).
It will be noted that the dinosaur, which
belonged to the reptile family and looked like a giant lizard, became extinct
about 120,000,000 years ago. A group of anthropologists digging in caves and
gorges in the Cagayan Valley, at the northeastern part of Luzon, recovered
fossilized bones of extinct mammals like elephants, rhinoceroses, stegodons,
giant pigs, and others. These mammals,
of course, came much later than the dinosaur, but their existence and eventual
extinction provide evidence of the land bridges linking South China to Formosa
via Luzon, one of the way stations along the ancient migration route. It is quite possible that these extinct
animals also roamed the forests and mountains of Cavite, as they did in the
Cagayan Valley, millions of years before the appearance of the dawn man.
PREHISTORY OF CAVITE
Filipino anthropologists, working on
meager data gathered from fossil findings from the caves of Tabon, Tadyao,
Duyong and Manungal in Palawan; from the Calatagan and Butong caves in
Batangas, from the Bolinao cave in Pangasinan, and from the caves and gorges in
the Cagayan Valley have come up with a fairly comprehensive outline of 50,000 years
of Philippine prehistory.
Modern man (homo sapiens) came to the
Philippines about 50,000 years ago via the land bridges during the Pleistocene
epoch (50,000 to 8,000 B.C.) when the level of the China Sea was comparatively
lower than now. Coming from the
hinterlands of South Asia in the north and the lands from the migration route,
waves of these early human beings came to settle in Luzon and in the
southwestern part of Palawan, bringing with them their primitive culture and
civilization.
These first inhabitants of the
Philippines – the Pygmies – were food gatherers, hunters and fishermen, their
tools being limited to flakes of chert with sharp cutting edges and large
choppers fashioned from pebbles.
Scientists found that their development from this primitive stage was
exceedingly slow because their tools never changed for more than 40,000 years.
In the caves of Cagayan Valley and
Pangasinan, scientist found fossilized bones of extinct animals of the
Pleistocene epoch, including elephants, rhinoceroses, and giant tortoises.
Subjected to radiocarbon-14 tests, these fossils were found to date back to
200,000 years ago. These were remains of a higher type of animals, which came
later than the dinosaur. At any rate, no man-made tools were found with the
fossils of these animals.
Not only the dinosaur and contemporary
mammals became extinct in the remote past but also the Old Stone Age
(Paleolithic) man himself as a consequence of the melting of the ice that
covered the earth during the first glacial period. The cold climate was
replaced by a temperate one during the inter-glacial period, and grass as well
as trees started to grow on earth. Unable to adapt themselves to the change of
temperature, the Old Stone Age men gradually vanished.
The melting of the ice caused the sea
level to rise, and the land bridges along the southern part of the Asian
continent were submerged under water, causing the disappearance of low-level
areas some 10 to 15 thousand years ago. What remained afterwards, rising above
the water, were the thousands of Islands comprising Philippine archipelago.
Using boats of all types and sizes, waves
of New Stone Age (Neolithic) men migrated to the Philippines, bringing with
them tools vastly more efficient than those of their predecessors, as well as
domesticated animals like pigs and chickens. With their improved tools of
agriculture, hunting and fishing, they soon abandoned their mountain caves and
began to settle along the coasts where fish, crabs, shrimps, and shellfish were
abundant. Their small houses, lineally constructed spanned about a league a
half along the beach. The construction of the houses was suited to their
economic activities, and provided protection from their enemies, especially
Moro pirates who came periodically to pillage and plunder the coastal areas,
taking away food, agricultural equipment, and the prize booty – men, women, and
children – to be solved in the thriving slave markets of the Moluccas.
The clusters of houses of the newly arrived settlers eventually became hamlets
and later small communities with some degree of social and political
organizations. Pooling their talents and other resources, they greatly advanced
their material conditions of life.
Clothes were fashioned from barks of trees beaten to a soft pulp by
means of polished stones. About this time, too, pottery was introduced in the
Philippines. The bones of the dead were stored away in huge jars and hidden in
the Old Stone Age caves, which now became their burial grounds.
The age of metals consisted of three
divisions; namely, (1) Copper Age (about 5,000 B.C.), which produced mainly
ornaments, (2) Bronze Age, which enabled man to produce stronger and better
tools, weapons, utensils, and farm implements; and (3) Iron Age (about 1,000
B.C.). During the Bronze Age trade and commerce between large communities
started, and the arts began to develop. It was during this age that man took
the first steps toward the establishment of some form of government or
political organization. Gradually and inevitably the first crude symbols of the
writing appeared. From then on the system of writing became refined, and with
his inborn talent man began recording his daily activities. Thus ended the long
period of prehistory and man formally entered history proper, the period when
man started keeping records of "“acts, happenings, and events,” raw
materials of history.
“History,” says a noted Jesuit historian,
“ is concerned with past events (especially) those in which men – human beings
– are involved. These things which men cause to happen, or which happen to
them, form the subject matter of history.”