Tabon Man

This article needs additional citations for

verification. Learn more

Tabon Man refers to remains discovered in

the Tabon Caves in Lipuun Point in
Quezon, Palawan in the Philippines. These
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 and jawbone of three
individuals, were believed to be the earliest
human remains known in the Philippines[1]
which date back to 16,500 years ago, 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] The Tabon fragments
are collectively called "Tabon Man" after
the Tabon Cave, the place where they were
found on the west coast of Palawan.
Tabon Cave appears to be 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.[3]

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 man found in the Philippines, and
is thought to have belonged to a young
female.[4] The Tabon Mandible is the
earliest evidence of human remains
showing archaic characteristics of
mandible and teeth. The Tabon Tibia
Fragment, a bone from the lower leg, was
found during the re-excavation of the
Tabon Cave by the National Museum of
the Philippines. The bone was sent to the
National Museum of Natural History in
France to be studied. Accelerated carbon
dating technique revealed a dating of
47,000 ± 11–10,000 years ago, making it
the oldest human fossil recovered in the
complex.

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. About half
of the 3,000 recovered specimens
examined were discarded cores of a
material which had to be transported from
some distance. This indicates that the
inhabitants were actually engaged in tool
manufacture. 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 45,000 or 50,000 years ago.[3]
Anthropologist Robert Fox, who directed
the excavations, deduced that the Tabon
Cave was a habitation of man for a period
of 40,000 years, from 50,000 to
9,000 years ago.

Physical anthropologists who have

examined the Tabon Man skullcap are
agreed that it belonged to modern man,
Homo sapiens, as distinguished from the
mid-Pleistocene Homo erectus species.
This indicates that Tabon Man was pre-
Mongoloid (Mongoloid being the term
anthropologists apply to the racial stock
which 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 Tabon
Man's physical appearance from the
recovered skull fragments except that he
was not a Negrito.[5]

Location
The Tabon Cave Complex is a series of
caves situated in a limestone promontory
at Lipuun Point in Southwestern
Palawan.[6] It spans 138 hectares and it
used to be an island but now, a mangrove
forest connected it to mainland Palawan.
There are roughly 218 caves, 38 of which
are rich with archaeological and
anthropological finds. Lipuun Point is
made up of 25 million year old limestone
and is composed of rocky large domes,
deep cliffs, and steep hills. In this area,
cave occupation of a sporadic or
temporary nature by modern humans
seems to be indicated into the early
Holocene. In the earlier Holocene, several
sites show more intensive or frequent
occupation; local people appear to have
been strongly focused on land-based,
riverine, and estuarine resources; and in
many cases the sea is known to have been
many kilometers away from the cave sites.
The Presidential Proclamation No. 996,
which was established on April 11, 1972,
protected the Tabon Caves Complex and
Lipuun point from deforestation and
destruction. It was declared as a Site
Museum Reservation and is preserved for
the present and future generations.

Paleoenvironment
Although Tabon Cave is just a few
minutes' walk from the sea, the lack of
marine shells from early cultural deposits
in this cave supports the idea that there
was a substantial land shelf around the
time of the Last Glacial Maximum, when
estimates place sea levels at 130 metres
(430 ft) below present or possibly lower.
The appearance of marine shells in
middens in other caves on Lipuun Point
from c. 7000 BP, and especially in later
periods, suggests increasing focus on
marine resources in the area in general;
the abandonment of Tabon Cave just prior
to this time may be related to sea level
rise. The potential relationship between
Tabon Cave travertine and pre-Late Glacial
Maximum wetter climates sees some
support from recent research on
vegetation sequences in north Palawan.
Tabon Cave would have been far inland
during the late Pleistocene, and Reynolds
(1993) suggests that such caves would
have been marginal culturally during
phases of low sea level, when currently
submerged areas would have been the
focus for human settlement. Over time,
there is increasing evidence for
occupation of caves associated with rising
sea levels, and at Lipuun Point from
c. 7000 BP, for a more maritime focus;
Tabon Cave was, however, abandoned
before this date.[7]

Tabonian culture
Stone tools, fossils, and earthenware have
been found in different caves from the
Tabon Caves Complex. In the Liyang Cave,
large jars filled with human remains were
discovered. The cave was believed to be a
burial site of early humans. In the Tabon
Cave, chert flakes and chopping tools,
evidence of early humans being food
gatherers and hunters, were found. Chert
was readily available from the riverbanks
near the caves. Early humans lived and
knapped flake tools inside the Tabon Cave.

See also
Homo luzonensis
Timeline of Philippine history
Homo floresiensis ("Hobbit")

Notes
Notes
1. Scott 1984, p. 14; Zaide 1999, p. 35,
citing Jocano 1975, p. 64.
2. Henderson, Barney. (August 3, 2010),
"Archaeologists unearth 67000-year-
old human bone in Philippines" , The
Daily Telegraph, retrieved October 22,
2010
3. Scott 1984, pp. 14–15.
4. Dizon, E (2002). "Notes on the
Morphology and Age of the Tabon
Cave Fossil Homo sapiens" . Current
Anthropology. 43: 660–666.
doi:10.1086/342432 .
5. Scott 1984, p. 15
 6. Location of Tabon Caves:
Pawlik, Alfred "The Palaeolithic in
the Philippines" 2003
Patole-Edoumba, Elise (2009). "A
TYPO-TECHNOLOGICAL
DEFINITION OF TABONIAN
INDUSTRIES" . IPPA BULLETIN 29,
2009: 21-25: 22.
Filipino Heritage: The stone age in
the Philippines , Lahing Pilipino
Pub. ; [Manila], 1977, pp. 91, 136,
171
7. Lewis, Helen "LANDSCAPE AND
OCCUPATION HISTORY AT TABON
CAVE, PALAWAN" 2007

References
References
Scott, William Henry (1984), Prehispanic
Source Materials for the study of
Philippine History , New Day Publishers,
ISBN 971-10-0226-4, retrieved
2008-08-05
Zaide, Sonia M. (1999), The Philippines:
A Unique Nation (Second ed.), All-
Nations Publishing, ISBN 971-642-071-4
Bautista, Angel P. (2004), Tabon Cave
Complex
Ikawa-Smith, Fumiko (1978), Early
Paleolithic in SOuth and East Asia , Paris:
Mouton Publishers, retrieved 2015-12-07
 Tabon Cave, Palawan , National Museum
of the Philippines, 2014, retrieved
2015-12-07
Tabon Cave Complex , National Museum
of the Philippines, 2014, retrieved
2015-12-07

Further reading
Fox, Robert B. (1970), The Tabon Caves:
Archaeological Explorations and
Excavations on Palawan , National
Museum, ASIN B001O7GGNI
Jocano, F. Landa (1975), Philippine
Prehistory: An Anthropological Overview
of the Beginnings of Filipino Society and
Culture , Philippine Center for Advanced
 Studies, University of the Philippines
System

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Tabon_Man&oldid=909752146"

Last edited 6 days ago by Wtmitchell

Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless

otherwise noted.