Pre-colonial Era

Of the major land areas in Southeast Asia, the Philippines was one of the last to receive human inhabitants. The earliest archaeological evidence fossilized bone found in the Tabon Caves on Palawan Island is more than 20,000 years old. It is generally believed, however, that the first movement of humans to this island began 50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch (or last great Ice Age). Palawan, sitting on the shallow Sunda Shelf, was then connected by a land bridge to Borneo and the Indonesian archipelago, making an almost complete overland passage to mainland Southeast Asia.

These earliest people were the ancestors of today's Negritos, dark-skinned people of short stature. Very few people of this race remain in the islands. Today they live only in the most remote, upland forested areas. The present-day Aeta, descendants of the earliest Negritos, live in a few remote interior sections of Luzon, Mindanao, and Panay.

The first seafarers to the Philippines probably arrived in the northern islands from China and Tonkin (now northern Vietnam) over 10,000 years ago. These were forebears of the present-day Bontoc and Ifugao peoples collectively called Igorots, or mountain people of the interior upland of northern Luzon. These groups became settled rice farmers who built the magnificent terraced rice paddies into the steep slopes of the Central Cordillera. They probably learned their farming practices from the Chinese. Today these terraces are found only in northern Luzon.

Beginning about 2,000 years ago, Malay-speaking peoples of Mongoloid descent began arriving in the Philippines from the Indonesian archipelago and the Malay Peninsula. These earliest Malays organized themselves into small, independent communities called barangays, each ruled by a datu. Unlike Indonesia and mainland Southeast Asia, there were no great unified kingdoms before the arrival of European colonizers. About 500 years before the Spanish colonization of the 16th century, commercial relations with China, Indochina, Malaya, India, and the Arab lands gradually intensified. The traders brought porcelain wares, silk, cotton, gold, and jewelry to exchange for birds' nests (for soup), pearls, shells, and forest products.
Islam also made its appearance in the pre-European period. Beginning about the 14th century, Muslim traders from Borneo brought their religion to the southern Philippines.

Muslim influence reached north into Luzon: early Manila, called Maynilad after a local plant, was a Muslim settlement before the Spaniards arrived. Islam, however, never became a significant force in the central and northern islands.
Today about 5 percent of the population is Muslim, and nearly all live on Mindanao, southern Palawan Island, and in the Sulu Archipelago. Because of continuing conflict between the Muslims and the central government, it is estimated that 90,000 Muslims have sought and been granted temporary refuge in Sabah, which is part of Eastern Malaysia. The refugee problem and the long-standing dispute over the boundary between Sabah and the Philippines continue to be minor irritants between these two ASEAN nations.

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