Tabon Man

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Tabon Man" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Part of a series on the
History of the Philippines
Timeline
Prehistoric period (pre-900) Early hominin activity Homo luzonensis Tabon Man Austronesian expansion Angono Petroglyphs Lal-lo and Gattaran Shell Middens Jade culture Sa Huỳnh culture Precolonial barangay Maritime Silk Road Events/Artifacts Balangay Cordillera Rice Terraces Grave goods Kalanay Cave Maitum anthropomorphic pottery Manunggul Jar Prehistoric beads Shell tools
Precolonial period (900–1565) Historically documented states/polities (north to south) Caboloan Cainta Tondo Namayan Maynila Ibalon Ma-i Pulilu Sandao Madja-as Dapitan Cebu Butuan Sanmalan Sultanate of Maguindanao Sultanate of Buayan Sultanates of Lanao Sultanate of Sulu Events/Artifacts Maragtas Laguna Copperplate Inscription Butuan Ivory Seal Limestone tombs of Kamhantik Kabayan Mummies Baybayin Batanes Ijang fortresses Golden Tara of Agusan Monreal Stones Butuan Silver Paleograph Piloncitos Barter rings Luzones Magellan expedition Battle of Mactan
Spanish colonial period (1565–1898) Events Voyage of Miguel López de Legazpi Sandugo Treaty of Cebu Blockade of Cebu Spanish capture of Manila Battle of Bangkusay New Spain Spanish East Indies Captaincy General Tondo Conspiracy Manila galleon Revolts and uprisings Spanish–Moro conflict Battles of La Naval de Manila British invasion Propaganda Movement 1872 Cavite mutiny La Liga Filipina Katipunan Cry of Pugad Lawin Philippine Revolution Tejeros Convention Republic of Biak-na-Bato Spanish–American War Treaty of Paris (1898) Battle of Manila Bay Declaration of Independence American capture of Manila Malolos Congress First Republic Philippine–American War Artifacts Boxer Codex Doctrina Christiana UST Baybayin Documents Velarde map
American colonial period (1898–1946) Tagalog Republic Negros Republic Zamboanga Republic Military Government Moro Rebellion Insular Government Jones Law Tydings–McDuffie Act Commonwealth World War II Japanese occupation Battle of Bataan Battle of Corregidor Second Republic Philippine resistance Hukbalahap Battle of Leyte Gulf Philippines campaign
Post-independence (1946–1965) Third Republic Treaty of Manila Mutual Defense Treaty Hukbalahap Rebellion Filipino First policy North Borneo dispute
Marcos era (1965–1986) Communist rebellion Moro conflict Martial law Fourth Republic People Power Revolution
Contemporary period (1986–present) Fifth Republic 1997 Asian financial crisis 2000 campaign against the MILF 2nd People Power Revolution EDSA III Oakwood mutiny Philippine drug war Territorial disputes Siege of Marawi Bangsamoro COVID-19 pandemic
By topic Ancient religions Rulers Queen consorts Administrative divisions Agriculture Archaeology Communications Conflicts Cultural achievements Diet and health Education Economy Geography Historiography Languages Medicine Military Names Politics Science and technology World Heritage Sites
Philippines portal
v t e

Tabon Man refers to remains discovered in the Tabon Caves in Lipuun Point in Quezon, Palawan in the Philippines. They were discovered by Robert B. Fox, an American anthropologist of the National Museum of the Philippines, on May 28, 1962. These remains, the fossilized fragments of a skull of a female and the jawbones of three individuals dating back to 16,500 years ago, were the earliest known human remains in the Philippines,^[1] until a metatarsal from the Callao Man discovered in 2007 was dated in 2010 by uranium-series dating as being 67,000 years old.^[2] However, some scientists think additional evidence is necessary to confirm those fossils as a new species, rather than a locally adapted population of other Homo populations, such as H. erectus or Denisovan.^[3]

The Tabon fragments are named after the Tabon Caves, where they were found on the west coast of Palawan. The cave complex appears to have been a kind 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 7000, 20,000, and 22,000 BCE.^[4] The right mandible of a Homo sapiens, which dates to 29,000 BC, was discovered together with a skullcap. The Tabon skull cap is considered the earliest skull cap of modern humans found in the Philippines, and is thought to have belonged to a young female.^[5] The Tabon mandible is the earliest evidence of human remains showing archaic characteristics of the mandible and teeth. The Tabon tibia fragment, a bone from the lower leg, was found during the re-excavation of the Tabon Cave complex by the National Museum of the Philippines. The bone was sent to the National Museum of Natural History in France to be studied. An accelerated carbon dating technique revealed a dating of 47,000 ± 11,000 years ago, making it the oldest human fossil recovered in the complex.

The Tabon Cave complex 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. About half of the 3,000 recovered specimens examined were discarded cores of a material that had to have been transported from some distance. This indicates that the inhabitants were engaged in tool manufacture. The Tabon 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 such as 45,000 or 50,000 years ago.^[4] Anthropologist Robert Fox, who directed the excavations, deduced that the Tabon Cave complex was a habitation of humans for a period of 40,000 years, from 50,000 to 9,000 years ago.^{[citation needed]}

Physical anthropologists who have examined the skullcap are agreed that she belonged to modern humans, Homo sapiens, as distinguished from the mid-Pleistocene Homo erectus species. This indicates that Tabon humans were pre-Mongoloid (Mongoloid being the term anthropologists apply to the populations who entered Southeast Asia during the Holocene and absorbed earlier peoples to produce the modern Malay, Indonesian, Filipino, and "Pacific" peoples). Two experts have given the opinion that the mandible is "Australian" in physical type and that the skullcap measurements are the closest to Ainu people or Tasmanians. Nothing can be concluded about the physical appearance of the individual from the recovered skull fragments except that she was not a Negrito.^[6]