A study of the musical instruments of Ifugao in the Cordillera Region,Northern Philippines

The Ifugao is one of the well-studied indigenous peoples in the Philippines from the Cordillera Region in the northern Philippines. They have a characteristic music that has historically been differentiated from the majority of the population in the country who perform and listen to Western music. There are substantial ethnographic monographs about their society and their chants, but organological studies of their musical instruments have not been undertaken in any detail. This thesis examines a collection of Ifugao musical instruments archived between the early 20th century and the present to help understand changes and transformations of the group’s musical culture. The musical instruments were examined in various institutions in the Philippines and United States, and a typological analysis was conducted. Fieldwork was also conducted in the summer of 2010 to further investigate the presence or absence of these traditional musical instruments in current Ifugao culture. The materials were systematically measured and assessed based on the von Hornbostel and Sachs classification scheme with full recognition of its later revisions. Most of the musical instruments are no longer in use. The loss of skill in playing and making instruments has gone along with the marked decline of agriculture in the area and the rapid shift towards tourism and urbanization during the middle of the 20th century. Diversity, variations, and ingenuity in their creation declined considerably during this period and the remaining few musical instruments have been transformed into objects primarily designed for public performance or sale to tourists. Attempts to revive cultural heritage have had the paradoxical consequence of introducing non-traditional instruments, in coexistence with an altered image of the past.published_or_final_versionMusicMasterMaster of Philosoph

NEW SITES IN SOUTHEASTERN BATANGAS, PHILIPPINES. REPORT ON THE SURVEY CONDUCTED BY THE UP-ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES PROGRAM IN 2008 (Nuevos sitios en la Batangas sudoriental. Informe sobre el estudio realizado por el Programa de Estudios Arqueológicos de la Universidad de las Filipinas en 2008)

Research in Batangas started in the early 20th century and focused in the southwestern part of the province. The eastern part of Batangas due to research agenda was generally overlooked. To examine what the potential of this area, archaeological explorations were conducted in the municipalities of San Juan, Lobo, Taysan, and Padre Garcia. The team recorded 20 burial and settlement sites and some of these yielded datable materials belonging to the Developed Metal Age (100-400 AD), 15th century, and late 1800s. These new sites and dates will bring new perspectives on the archaeological history of Batangas.<br>La investigación en Batangas se inició en el siglo XX y se centró en la parte suroeste de la provincia. La parte oriental de Batangas se pasó por alto. Para examinar el potencial de esta zona, las exploraciones arqueológicas se realizaron en los municipios de San Juan, Lobo, Taysan y Padre García. El equipo registró 20 sitios de enterramiento, algunos de los cuales libraron materiales datables pertenecientes a la fase avanzada de la edad de los metales (100-400 d. C.), al siglo XV y a finales del XIX. Estos nuevos sitios y las fechas aportan nuevas perspectivas sobre la historia arqueológica de Batangas

A 4000 year-old introduction of domestic pigs into the Philippine Archipelago: implications for understanding routes of human migration through Island Southeast Asia and Wallacea

New research into the Neolithic of Island Southeast Asia is broadening the old models and making them more diverse, more human - more like history: people and animals can move through the islands in a multitude of ways. The domestic pig is an important tracker of Neolithic people and practice into the Pacific, and the authors address the controversial matter of whether domestic pigs first reached the islands of Southeast Asia from China via Taiwan or from the neighbouring Vietnamese peninsula. The DNA trajectory read from modern pigs favours Vietnam, but the authors have found well stratified domestic pig in the Philippines dated to c. 4000 BP and associated with cultural material of Taiwan. Thus the perils of relying only on DNA - but are these alternative or additional stories?

The human occupation record of Gua Mo’o hono shelter, Towuti-Routa region of Southeastern Sulawesi

Here we describe the excavation, chronology and assemblage from Gua Mo’o hono, a rockshelter in the Lake Towuti region in Southeast Sulawesi. The excavation produced glass, ceramics and pottery, dense faunal and lithic assemblages and a diversity of bone tools. The Gua Mo’o hono sequence demonstrates that humans were active in and around the rockshelter from at least 6500 cal BP, and informs on early to late Holocene subsistence and technology in this region. Although the occupants of Gua Mo’o hono exploited a diverse range of fauna from a variety of habitats around the site, there appears to have been a particular focus on suids, both the babirusa and the Sulawesi warty pig

The human occupation record of Gua Mo'o hono shelter, Towuti-Routa region of Southeastern Sulawesi

Here we describe the excavation, chronology and assemblage from Gua Mo'o hono, a rockshelter in the Lake Towuti region in Southeast Sulawesi. The excavation produced glass, ceramics and pottery, dense faunal and lithic assemblages and a diversity of bone tools. The Gua Mo'o hono sequence demonstrates that humans were active in and around the rockshelter from at least 6500 cal BP, and informs on early to late Holocene subsistence and technology in this region. Although the occupants of Gua Mo'o hono exploited a diverse range of fauna from a variety of habitats around the site, there appears to have been a particular focus on suids, both the babirusa and the Sulawesi warty pig

Emergence and diversification of the neolithic in Southern Vietnam: insights from coastal Rach Nui

We examine the southern Vietnamese site of Rach Nui, dated to between 3390 and 3850 cal BP, in the context of three major aspects of the Neolithic in Mainland Southeast Asia: mound formation and chronology, construction techniques, and subsistence economy. Results indicate that this ca. 75 m in diameter, 5 m high mound, comprising over a dozen phases of earthen platforms, upon which were raised sophisticated wooden structures, was built in <200 years. While consuming domesticated millet, rice, and occasionally dogs and pigs, the main subsistence orientation included managed tubers and fruits and a range of mangrove ecosystem taxa: catfishes, turtles, crocodiles, monitor lizards, macaques and langurs, to name a few. This combined vegeculture-foraging lifeway in a mangrove forested environment, likely in the context of a tradable goods extractive industry, adds to a growing picture of significant diversity, and sophisticated construction skills in the Southeast Asian Neolithic.This research was supported by the Australian Research Council, grants DP110101097, FT 120100299, and FT100100527

An Son and the Neolithic of Southern Vietnam

Between 4500 and 3500 years ago, partially intrusive Neolithic populations in the riverine basins of mainland Southeast Asia began to form mounded settlements and to develop economies based on rice cultivation, fishing, hunting, and the domestication of animals, especially pigs and dogs. A number of these sites have been excavated in recent years and they are often large mounds that can attain several meters in depth, comprising successive layers of alluvial soil brought in periodically to serve as living floors. The site of An Son is of this type and lies in a small valley immediately north of the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam. Excavated on five occasions since 1978, and most recently in 2009, it was occupied from the late third into the late second millennium b.c. An Son has produced evidence that attests the domestication of pigs and dogs in all layers apart (perhaps) from the most basal one, which was not investigated in 2009, together with the growing of rice of the subspecies Oryza sativa japonica, of Chinese Neolithic origin. The oldest pottery has simple incised and punctate zoned decoration with parallels in central Thailand, especially in the basal phases at Nong Nor and Khok Phanom Di. From its middle and later occupation phases (1800–1200 b.c.), An Son has produced a number of supine extended burials with finely decorated pottery grave goods that carry some unique forms, especially vessels with wavy or serrated rims. The An Son burials represent a Neolithic population that expressed a mixture of both indigenous Hoabinhian and more northerly (probably Neolithic southern Chinese) cranial and dental phenotypes, perhaps representing a likely ancestral population for some of the modern Austroasiatic speaking populations of mainland Southeast Asia

Emergence and diversification of the neolithic in southern Vietnam: insights from coastal Rach Nui

We examine the southern Vietnamese site of Rach Nui, dated to between 3390 and 3850 cal BP, in the context of three major aspects of the Neolithic in Mainland Southeast Asia: mound formation and chronology, construction techniques, and subsistence economy. Results indicate that this ca. 75 m in diameter, 5 m high mound, comprising over a dozen phases of earthen platforms, upon which were raised sophisticated wooden structures, was built in <200 years. While consuming domesticated millet, rice, and occasionally dogs and pigs, the main subsistence orientation included managed tubers and fruits and a range of mangrove ecosystem taxa: catfishes, turtles, crocodiles, monitor lizards, macaques and langurs, to name a few. This combined vegeculture-foraging lifeway in a mangrove forested environment, likely in the context of a tradable goods extractive industry, adds to a growing picture of significant diversity, and sophisticated construction skills in the Southeast Asian Neolithic