Eusebio Z Dizon

New evidence for a 67,000-year-old human presence at Callao Cave, Luzon, Philippines

Documentation of early human migrations through Island Southeast Asia and Wallacea en route to Australia has always been problematic due to a lack of well-dated human skeletal remains. The best known modern humans are from Niah Cave in Borneo (40-42ka), and from Tabon Cave on the island of Palawan, southwest Philippines (47+/-11ka). The discovery of Homo floresiensis on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia has also highlighted the possibilities of identifying new hominin species on islands in the region. Here, we report the discovery of a human third metatarsal from Callao Cave in northern Luzon. Direct dating of the specimen using U-series ablation has provided a minimum age estimate of 66.7+/-1ka, making it the oldest known human fossil in the Philippines. Its morphological features, as well as size and shape characteristics, indicate that the Callao metatarsal definitely belongs to the genus Homo. Morphometric analysis of the Callao metatarsal indicates that it has a gracile structure, close to that observed in other small-bodied Homo sapiens. Interestingly, the Callao metatarsal also falls within the morphological and size ranges of Homo habilis and H. floresiensis. Identifying whether the metatarsal represents the earliest record of H. sapiens so far recorded anywhere east of Wallaces Line requires further archaeological research, but its presence on the isolated island of Luzon over 65,000 years ago further demonstrates the abilities of humans to make open ocean crossings in the Late Pleistocene.

The first settlement of Remote Oceania: the Philippines to the Marianas

The authors compare pottery assemblages in the Marianas and the Philippines to claim endorsement for a first human expansion into the open Pacific around 1500 BC. The Marianas are separated from the Philippines by 2300km of open sea, so they are proposing an epic pioneering voyage of men and women, with presumably some cultivated plants but apparently no animals. How did they manage this unprecedented journey?

The Batanes archaeological project and the Out of Taiwan hypothesis for Austronesian dispersal

This paper summarises the archaeological results of the Batanes fieldwork undertaken between 2002 and 2005 by teams from the Australian National University, the National Museum of the Philippines, and the University of the Phiiippines. The evidence is believed to support a Neolithic settlement of the Batanes from Taiwan before 4000 BP, followed by continuing contacts, lasting until at least 1300 BP, that involved a movement of slate and nephrite from Taiwan (possibly via Ludao and Lanyu Islands) to Batan and Itbayat. Evidence that initial Neolithic settlement of the Batanes came from the south, via Luzon, is not indicated in the assemblages so far excavated.

Ancient jades map 3,000 years of prehistoric exchange in Southeast Asia

We have used electron probe microanalysis to examine Southeast Asian nephrite (jade) artifacts, many archeologically excavated, dating from 3000 B.C. through the first millennium A.D. The research has revealed the existence of one of the most extensive sea-based trade networks of a single geological material in the prehistoric world. Green nephrite from a source in eastern Taiwan was used to make two very specific forms of ear pendant that were distributed, between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D., through the Philippines, East Malaysia, southern Vietnam, and peninsular Thailand, forming a 3,000-km-diameter halo around the southern and eastern coastlines of the South China Sea. Other Taiwan nephrite artifacts, especially beads and bracelets, were distributed earlier during Neolithic times throughout Taiwan and from Taiwan into the Philippines.

Notes on the Morphology and Age of the Tabon Cave Fossil Homo sapiens

eusebio dizon, florent détroit , françois s émah, christophe falguères , s ébastien hameau, wilfredo ronquillo, and emmanuel cabanis Archaeology Division, National Museum of the Philippines, Manila, The Philippines (Dizon, Ronquillo)/Laboratoire de Préhistoire du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle et Laboratoire d’Anthropologie de l’Université de la Méditerranée, UMR 6569 du CNRS, IPH, 1, rue René Panhard, F75013 Paris, France (fdetroit@cimrs1.mnhn.fr) (Détroit, Sémah, Falguères, Hameau)/Service de Radiologie de l’Hôpital des Quinze-Vingt et UMR 6569 du CNRS, IPH, 1, rue René Panhard, F-75013 Paris, France (Cabanis). 14 i 02

Small Size in the Philippine Human Fossil Record: Is It Meaningful for a Better Understanding of the Evolutionary History of the Negritos?

Abstract “Pygmy populations” are recognized in several places over the world, especially in Western Africa and in Southeast Asia (Philippine “negritos,” for instance). Broadly defined as “small-bodied Homo sapiens” (compared with neighboring populations), their origins and the nature of the processes involved in the maintenance of their phenotype over time are highly debated. Major results have been recently obtained from population genetics on present-day negrito populations, but their evolutionary history remains largely unresolved. We present and discuss the Upper Pleistocene human remains recovered from Tabon Cave and Callao Cave in the Philippines, which are potentially highly relevant to these research questions. Human fossils have been recovered in large numbers from Tabon Cave (Palawan Island) but mainly from reworked and mixed sediments from several archaeological layers. We review and synthesize the long and meticulous collaborative work done on the archives left from the 1960s excavations and on the field. The results demonstrate the long history of human occupations in the cave, since at least ∼30,000 BP. The examination of the Tabon human remains shows a large variability: large and robust for one part of the sample, and small and gracile for the other part. The latter would fit quite comfortably within the range of variation of Philippine negritos. Farther north, on Luzon Island, the human third metatarsal recently recovered from Callao Cave and dated to ∼66,000 BP is now the oldest direct evidence of human presence in the Philippines. Previous data show that, compared with H. sapiens (including Philippine negritos), this bone presents a very small size and several unusual morphological characteristics. We present a new analytical approach using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics for comparing the Callao fossil to a wide array of extant Asian mammals, including nonhuman primates and H. sapiens. The results demonstrate that the shape of the Callao metatarsal is definitely closer to humans than to any other groups. The fossil clearly belongs to the genus Homo; however, it remains at the margin of the variation range of H. sapiens. Because of its great antiquity and the presence of another diminutive species of the genus Homo in the Wallace area during this time period (H. floresiensis), we discuss here in detail the affinities and potential relatedness of the Callao fossil with negritos that are found today on Luzon Island.

A Non-destructive Mineralogical Study of Nephritic Artifacts from Itbayat Island, Batanes, Northern Philippines

A non-destructive mineralogical study of nephritic jade artifacts was carried out using a low-vacuum type scanning electron microscope (LVSEM) with an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS). Six artifacts from a prehistoric workshop site dated between 2500 and 1300 yr BP at Anaro on Itbayat Island, Batanes Province, northern Philippines, were found to be composed of nephrite (tremolite-actinolite amphiboles) with zinc-bearing chromian-spinel as accessory minerals. The mineralogical characteristics of these nephrite artifacts are comparable with those of Fengtian (Taiwan) nephrite. The results indicate that the original materials for these artifacts were collected in the Fengtian area, near Hualien in eastern Taiwan.