The Earliest Settlers

The Ice Age theory holds that in earlier ages, the water surrounding the Philippines were below their present level. Many Islands now under the sea were then above water. These exposed bodies of land, serving as land bridges, once connected the Philippines with mainland

Asia. Over these land bridges, ancient men and some migratory plants and animals reached the Philippines . These primitive people lived in caves, were naked or scantily clothed, and subsisted on wild plants and animals and raw food. They were heavily muscled and thick-haired. They used crude tools and weapons of unpolished stones similar to those found in Asia, in Europe, and in Africa during the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic).

As time went on, these early people, with the large mammals which came with them, apparently disappeared. Their fossils remains and crude stone implements have been found in certain archaeological sites throughout the Philippines, notably in the Cagayan Valley, in Pangasinan, in Novaliches just North of Manila, in Calatagan in Batangas, on Panay Island, and Davao. Skeletal remains of human were found in Tabon Cave in Southern Palawan in 1962; from these it is evident that ancient men live in the Philippines as early as 50,000 years ago.