Tabon Man

The earliest human remains known in the Philippines are the fossilized fragments of a skull and jawbone of three individuals, discovered on May 28, 1962 by Dr. Robert B. Fox, an American anthropologist of the National Museum. [Harvnb|Scott|1984|p=14; Harvnb|Zaide|1999|p=35, citing Harvnb|Jocano|1975|p=64.] These fragments are collectively called "Tabon Man" after the place where they were found on the west coast of Palawan. Tabon Cave appears to be akind of Stone Age factory, with both finished stone flake tools and waste core flakes having been found at four separate levels in the main chamber. Charcoal left from three assemblages of cooking fires there has been Carbon-14 dated to roughly 7,000, 20,000, and 22,000 BCE.Harvnb|Scott|1984|pp=14-15.]

Tabon Cave is named after the "Tabon Bird" (Tabon Scrubfowl, Megapodius Cumingii), which deposited thick hard layers of guano during periods when the cave was uninhabited so that succeeding groups of tool-makers settled on a cement-like floor of bird dung. That the inhabitants were actually engaged in tool manufacture is indicated that about half of the 3,000 recovered specemins examined are discarded cores of a material which had to be transported from some distance. The Tabon man fossils are considered to have come from a third group of inhabitants, who worked the cave between 22,000 and 20,000 BCE. An earlier cave level lies so far below the level containing cooking fire assemblages that it must represent Upper Pleistocene dates like 45 or 50 thousand years ago. Anthropologist Robert Fox, who directed the excavations, deduces that the Tabon cave was a habitation of man for a period of 40,000 years, from 50,000 to 9,000 years ago.fact|date=August 2008

Notes

References

*Citation
last=Scott
first=William Henry
authorlink=William Henry Scott (historian)
title=Prehispanic Source Materials for the study of Philippine History
publisher=New Day Publishers
year=1984
isbn=971-10-0226-4
accessdate=2008-08-05
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=bR2XAQAACAAJ.
*Citation
last=Zaide
first=Sonia M.
title=The Philippines: A Unique Nation
edition=Second
year=1999
publisher=All-Nations Publishing
isbn=971-642-071-4
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=otdEGQAACAAJ.

Further reading

*Citation
last=Jocano
first=F. Landa
title=Philippine Prehistory: An Anthropological Overview of the Beginnings of Filipino Society and Culture
publisher=Philippine Center for Advanced Studies, University of the Philippines System
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=xwriGAAACAAJ
year=1975