FFC 2104

PHILIPPINE ART

Prepared by:
Asst. Prof. RONWELL JASON L. BACANI, mgt, paea
Faculty Member
CFAD - Fine Arts Department
 FFC 2104
PHILIPPINE ART

Asst. Prof. RONWELL JASON L. BACANI, mgt, paea

Faculty Member
CFAD - Fine Arts Department
 FFC 2104 – Philippine Art
FFC 2104 is the study of various Arts in the Philippines
(Architecture, Sculpture, Painting and other forms of
visual arts) in relation to Cultures and traditions of the
Filipino people dating from Pre-Colonial period to
Contemporary art:
• Philippine Pre-History
• Pre-Hispanic / Pre-Colonial Period
• Spanish Period
• American Period
• Post-American Period
• Philippine Art Masters
• Contemporary Philippine Art & Artists
 Why Study Art from the Past?

Art from the past holds clues to the life of the people long-ago. By looking at a
work of art's symbolism, colors, and materials, we can learn about the culture
that produced it.
 Why Study Art from the Past?

We can also compare works of art, which provides different perspectives, and
gives us a well-rounded way of looking at events, situations, and people. By
analyzing artworks from the past and looking at their details, we can rewind
time and establish the connection between the past and present culture.
 Why Study Art from the Past?

Looking at art from the past contributes to who we are as people. By looking
at what has been done before, we gather knowledge and inspiration that
contribute to how we speak, feel, and view the world around us.
 The Pre-Historic Period

Prehistory (or the prehistoric period) refers to the time before written records,
however, human expression existed across the globe long before writing. It is
the period of human activity between the use of the first stone tools and the
invention of writing systems.
 The Pre-Historic Period
Time periods
In dividing up human prehistory, historians typically use the three-age
system. The three-age system is the periodization of human
prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their
respective predominant tool-making technologies:

Stone Age bronze Age Iron Age

 Determining the age of
Prehistoric Art
1) To determine the date of an artifact the surrounding layer of
earth is tested – or –

2) Radiocarbon can be tested from once living objects found near

the artifact.
 Determining the age of
Prehistoric Art

Prehistory was a time of major shifts in climate and environment. Modern

archaeology uses a stratigraphic process, where archaeologists precisely
record each level and the location of all objects.
 Determining the age of
Prehistoric Art

Radiocarbon dating can be used to date organic artifacts, or things that were
once alive. All living things contain a radioactive isotope of Carbon called
Carbon 14 which they absorb from the sun while they are alive.
 The Stone Age

The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone
was widely used to make implements with an edge, a point, or a
percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years.
 The Stone Age
• Paleolithic (Greek: palaios – old; lithos – stone)

(1) Lower Paleolithic - The earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or

Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3.3 million years
ago when the first evidence for stone tool production.

(2) Middle Paleolithic - The Middle Paleolithic is the second

subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. The Middle
Paleolithic broadly spanned from 300,000 to 30,000 years ago.

(3) Upper Paleolithic - The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic,

Late Stone Age) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or
Old Stone Age. Between 50,000 to 10,000 years ago.
 The Stone Age

• Mesolithic (Greek: mesos – middle; lithos – stone)

• Neolithic (Greek: neos – new; lithos – stone)
 THE PRE-HISTORIC
FFC 2104

PHILIPPINES
 The Pre-Historic
Philippines
The Philippine Pre-History covers the events prior to
the written history of what would become
the Philippine archipelago.

The current separation line between this period and

the early history of the Philippines, 900 AD, which is
the date of the first surviving written record to come
from the Philippines, the Laguna Copperplate
Inscription (LCI).
Models of Migration to the PHILIPPINES
 Models of Migration to the
PHILIPPINES

There have been several models of early human

migration to the Philippines. Since Henry Otley Beyer first
proposed his wave migration theory, numerous scholars
have approached the question of how, when and why
humans first came to the Philippines.
 I. The Beyer’s
Wave Migration Theory
The most widely known
theory of the prehistoric
peopling of the Philippines is
that of H. O. Beyer, founder of
the Anthropology Department
of UP.

According to Dr. Beyer, the

ancestors of the Filipinos
came in different "waves of
migration”.
Dr. Henry Otley Beyer
 A. The “Dawn Man” Group
“Dawn man” is a cave-man type who was similar to Peking
Man, Java man, and other Asian Homo erectus of 250,000
years ago.

Facial reconstruction of Peking man Facial reconstruction of Java man

 B. The Negritos
The aboriginal pygmy
group, the “Negritos”,
who arrived between
25,000 and 30,000 years
ago via land bridges.

They were good at

hunting, fishing and
food gathering. They
used spears and small
flint stones weapons.

“Aetas” of the Zambales

 C. The Indonesians
The seafaring tool-using “Indonesian” group who arrived
about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago and were the first immigrants
to reach the Philippines by sea.
Indonesians were more advanced than the Negritos in that:
1. they had tools made out
of stone and steel, which
enabled them to build
sturdier houses.
2. they engaged in farming
and mining,
3. they used materials made
of brass. “Balangay”, a kind of ancient sea vessel
 D. The Malays
The seafaring, more civilized “Malays”. They were believed to
have come more than 2,000 years ago.
The Malays were:
• brown-skinned
• straight black hair
• medium height
• flat noses
They brought the Iron age culture
and engaged in pottery, weaving,
jewelry making and metal smelting,
and introduced the irrigation system
in rice planting.
 II. Core Population Theory
First proposed by anthropologist Felipe Landa Jocano of the
University of the Philippines.

This theory holds that:

1. there weren't clear discrete waves of migration.

2. early inhabitants of Southeast Asia were of the

same ethnic group with similar culture.

3. but through a gradual process over time driven by

environmental factors, differentiated themselves
from one another.
 II. Core Population Theory
▪ The core population theory is the
exact opposite of the migration
theory by Dr. Otley Beyer.

▪ The core population states that

there is an original Filipino race
with in the Philippines.

▪ That there were evidences that

the Philippines was inhabited tens
of thousands of years ago.
Dr. Felipe Landa Jocano
 II. Core Population Theory
Other prominent anthropologists like Robert B. Fox, Alfredo
Evangelista, Jesus Peralta, Zeus Salazar and Ponciano
Bennagen agreed with Jocano.

Dr. Robert Bradford Fox Dr. Jesus Peralta Dr. Zeus A. Salazar
 The Tabon Man

refers to remains discovered in the Tabon Caves in Lipuun

Point in Quezon, Palawan in the Philippines. These were
discovered by Dr. Robert B. Fox, an American anthropologist
of the National Museum of the Philippines on May 28, 1962.
 Tabon Man
The remains, were fossilized fragments of a skull cap and
jawbone of three individuals.

The said fragments were believed to be the earliest human

remains known in the Philippines which date back to 16,500
years ago, until "Callao Man" discovered in 2007 was dated in
2010 by uranium-series dating as being 67,000 years old.
 The Callao Man

In 2007, a team of archaeologists led by UP-Diliman Professor Dr.

Armand Salvador Mijares discovered the “earliest human remains
known in the Philippines” in Callao Cave, Peñablanca, Cagayan,
Philippines.
 Callao Man
using uranium series
“earliest human
ablation, the bone was
remains known in found to be about
the Philippines” 67,000 years old.

61-millimeter
metatarsal bone

its physical size was similar

to the modern Negrito, or
Aetas of Luzon.
 Callao Man

The bone was the third metatarsal of

the right foot, thus is referred to 1 23
scientifically as Callao MT3. 45
Butchered animal remains were also
found in the same layer of sediment,
which indicates that the Callao Man
had a degree of knowledge in the use
of tools, although no stone tools were
found.
 The ‘Homo luzonensis’

In 2019, Florent Détroit et al. have discovered the fossilized remains of

a previously unknown type of human that proves our evolution is more
complicated than we knew.
 The ‘Homo luzonensis’

Thirteen (13) fossil bones and teeth excavated in Callao Cave on

the northern part of the island of Luzon represent an enigmatic
previously unknown human species called ‘Homo luzonensis’.
 The ‘Homo luzonensis’
The fossils belonged to two adults and one child who
lived between 50,000 and 67,000 years ago.

Based on animal bones with butchering marks found at

the site, it appears these people ate meat and may have
used stone tools.
 The ‘Homo luzonensis’

Scientists said the Homo luzonensis species were probably

small in stature and possessed an unexpected mix of archaic
and modern traits.
 The Kalinga Man?

University of Wollongong palaeontologist Gert van den Bergh was part of a team that
uncovered most of an ancient rhino skeleton. (Supplied: University of Wollongong)
The Kalinga Man?

Researchers found a
700,000-year-old site on
the Philippine island of
Luzon where unknown
hominins butchered a
rhinoceros.
 The Kalinga Man?

Hundreds of stone tools and animal bones, including the best part
of a rhino skeleton showing signs of butchering, were unearthed on
the island of Luzon.
 The Kalinga Man?

The most intact skeleton found of the now-extinct Rhinoceros

philippinensis. Intriguingly, 13 of its bones showed clear cut marks.
Two leg bones looked like they had been smashed — one was
completely shattered — presumably to get at the marrow inside.
 Ranch site in
Cagayan Province
The proof of earliest man’s presence was recovered from a ranch
site in Cagayan Province - two flake tools dated about .9 million
years, the oldest man-made object associated with the fossils of
a proboscidean (stegodon) , a prehistoric elephant.

Flake tools are stone implements Fossilized molar of Stegodon. The

made during the Paleolithic Age specimen is almost a complete right
until the Early Metal Age. upper 1st molar having 7 ridges or edge.
 Ranch site in
Cagayan Province

reconstruction of the proboscidean and the stegodon.

Philippine Stone Age

50,000 BC (estimated)
First evidence of the systematic
use of Stone Age technology in
the Philippines.

Flake tools (23,000 BC)

Many of the flake tools recovered
in Tabon Caves, Palawan were
made from chert, a hard stone
commonly found in the nearby
riverbeds of Quezon, Palawan.
 Philippine Stone Age

Duyong Cave Pre-ceramic assemblage

From Dr. Robert Fox, 1970
Man’s Conquest of the Pacific, Peter Bellwood, 1978
 III. Theory of Diffusion of
Austronesian languages
Another, more contemporary theory based on the study
of the evolution of languages between approximately
10,000 – 6,000 BC.

▪ Austronesian groups descended from Yunnan

Plateau in China and settled in what is now
the Philippines by sailing using “balangays”

▪ or by traversing land bridges coming from Taiwan.

 A. Out of Sundaland
hypotheses
▪ The various "Out of Sundaland" hypotheses,
posited by a minority of modern authors and
differing slightly in the details, is similar to
Jocanda's "Core Population" hypothesis.

▪ However, instead of the Philippines, they assume

the origin of the Austronesian peoples as being
the now sunken Sundaland landmass
(modern Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and the Malay
Peninsula).
A. Out of Sundaland
hypotheses
 B. Out-of-Taiwan hypothesis

▪ According to the mainstream "out-of-Taiwan

model", a large-scale Austronesian expansion
began around 5000–2500 BC. Population
growth primarily fuelled this migration.

▪ These first settlers may have landed in

northern Luzon in the archipelago of the
Philippines, intermingling with the earlier Australo-
Melanesian population who had inhabited the
islands since about 23,000 years earlier.
Distribution of Austronesian
languages
 C. “Nusantao” Maritime Trading
and Communication
Network (NMTCN)
▪ American Anthropologist Wilhelm Solheim II suggested an
alternative model based on maritime movement of people
over different directions and routes.

▪ NMTCN is a trade and communication network that first

appeared in the Asia-Pacific region during its Neolithic
age, or beginning roughly around 5000 BC.

▪ "Nusantao" derived from the Austronesian root words

“nusa” - south and “tao” - man or people.
 C. NMTCN
Solheim's suggestions are in contrast to the more widely
accepted Out-of-Taiwan hypothesis (OOT) by Peter Bellwood.

He suggests that since the

pattern of cultural diffusion in
the Asia-Pacific region is
spread in all directions, it is
likely that the spread of
cultural traits happened via
some kind of trading network,
rather than a series of
migrations.

Dr. Wilhelm “Bill” G. Solheim II

 THE PRE-HISTORIC
FFC 2104

PHILIPPINES

Prepared by:
Asst. Prof. RONWELL JASON L. BACANI, mgt, paea
Faculty Member
CFAD - Fine Arts Department
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