Ancient Ifugao culture more sophisticated than previously thought

This is one case in which reality is greater than myth.

 

The creation myths of the Tuwali of Ifugao say that rice farming in the Cordilleras began in a place called Kiyyangan. As it turns out, the place exists and its culture was more advanced than previously thought.

 

It was originally believed that it took the Ifugao thousands of years, painstakingly toiling away with crude tools and bare hands, to make the monumentally vast rice terraces of the Cordilleras.

More advanced culture and technology
 

However, new excavations under the Ifugao Archaeological Project (IAP) of what is believed to be the cradle of the Ifugao Tuwali civilization actually suggest a more sophisticated culture than previously imagined.

 

This is supportive of the newer theories that propose a shorter timeline for the terraces' construction limited to just a few hundred years—indicative of more advanced social and technological conditions.

 

In a lecture on Friday, July 12, at the National Museum of the Philippines, archaeologist Dr. Stephen Acabado and a team of archeologists from the University of the Philippines and the University of Guam presented data on the excavations of a river valley that is believed to once be the Old Kiyyangan Village of the Tuwali people.

'Huge' village, rich culture

 

They found evidence of a pre-hispanic Ifugao village composed of 180 houses of almost a thousand people—a “huge” population for that time, according to Acabado.

 

Furthermore, the rich array of artifacts unearthed from excavations in 2012 and 2013—including beads, porcelain, ceramics, earthenware and stoneware—suggest that the people of the Old Kiyyangan Village actively traded and exchanged goods with lowlanders.

 

Some of the artifacts found at the site were pieces of porcelain, probably from mainland Southeast Asia and China; beads from India or Indonesia; and a tooth, likely belonging to a large cat.

 

These suggest a sophisticated and complex culture that thrived long before the Spanish arrived, Acabado said.

 

For now, there is no evidence to suggest the planting of rice at the site some 700 to 1,000 years ago, nor is there any evidence that the Tuwali were the ones who built the rice terraces.

 

Instead, the Tuwali mostly planted taro, according to paleobotanic evidence unearthed in 2012.

 

More data analyses will be done in the next three months. 

Joint conservation effort

 

The IAP is a collaborative effort of the Save the Ifugao Rice Terraces Movement, the National Museum of the Philippines, the Archaeological Studies Program of the University of the Philippines Diliman, and the University of Guam.

 

“IAP is not about answering the big question of how old the terraces are,” Dr. Acabado clarified. “Whether the terraces are 3,000 or 5,000 years old or whether they are much younger—300 or 500—doesn't really matter. It's more on how the Ifugaos were able to modify their landscape.”

 

The goal of the study is to contribute to the Ifugao history and to use these data to help develop conservation programs as well.

 

Heading this excavation is Dr. Stephen Acabado of the University of Guam, together with Dr. Grace Barretto-Tesoro of the UP Archaeological Studies Program, Marlon Martin of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement, and Ana Labrador of the National Museum of the Philippines. — TJD, GMA News