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Tabon Caves

From 1962 through 1966, staff members from the Philippine National Museum led by Robert B. Fox excavated a number of caves located at the limestone formation of Lipuun Point, Quezon, on the southwestern coast of Palawan Island in the philippines. Collectively called the Tabon Caves, the excavations and the subsequent analyses of excavated materials revealed a wealth of archaeological data that have extended and detailed the frontiers of Philippine prehistory up until 50,000 years ago.

The findings have profound implications for the Philippine, Southeast Asian, and Pacific region’s archaeology because they reveal that “the ancient Filipinos were not only the recipients of cultural complexes from Asia but contributed to the historical developments of neighboring areas” (Fox 1968, 2).

Tabon Cave is the most important cave in the area, revealing a date range from 30,500±1100 b.p. and 9,250±250 b.p., well within the late Paleolithic period in the Philippines. It is large, with the cave mouth measuring sixteen meters wide and eight meters high. Located on higher ground, over thirty meters above the present sea level, the cave is nearly forty-one meters in length. It is bathed by sunlight throughout the day and is generally dry even during the rainy monsoon seasons, making it ideal for extended habitation.

Excavations have established the presence of Pleistocene man in the archipelago and revealed six levels with Paleolithic assemblages. The cave was inhabited continuously during the last glacial period, a time when the sea level was low and the shore, presently just below the cave, was about thirty kilometers away. The presence of a land shelf in this area, as revealed by geological and geomorphological findings, is validated by the total absence of marine shells from all the levels excavated at Tabon Cave.

The habitation levels indicate the ubiquitous presence of chert-flaked tools and waste materials. Attesting to the manufacture and use of stones for tools by the former inhabitants of the cave, thousands of waste flakes and unused cores were recovered in the course of the excavation work at Tabon Cave. One important result of the excavations was the recovery of human fossil bones of at least three individuals. The finds include a large fragment of a frontal bone, including the brow and parts of nasal bones. Although found in a disturbed area of the cave, available comparative data indicate that the fossil finds may be tentatively dated between 22,000 and 24,000 years ago. The late phase at Tabon Cave indicates a jar-burial complex. Archaeological excavations “also yielded jade and stone beads, bracelets, earrings, a few glass beads, and bronze, but no iron” (Fox 1970, 44). Tabon Cave was used for jar burial from about 200 to 500 b.p.

Manunggul Cave was discovered nearly two years after the excavations of Tabon Cave had started. This jar-burial cave was found tucked into the face of a sheer cliff with a majestic view of the South China Sea. It is over 115 meters high from present sea level and has four chambers. The cave has three openings but only two of the chambers, A and B, were used for jar burials. Chamber A contained large jars and covers, smaller decorated and painted vessels, human skulls, and parts of hematite-painted human