Defining Ifugao Social Organization: “House,” Field, and Self-Organizing Principles in the Northern Philippines

The idea that complex agricultural and irrigation systems lead to centralized control has been refuted in the last three decades. Indeed, ethnographic and archaeological literatures regarding this relationship have been forthcoming in recent years. This article contributes to this body of work by investigating the Ifugao agricultural system. Spatial patterning and ethnographic information from Ifugao suggest that a recursive relationship between the landscape and its users exist where environmental constraints necessitate cooperation among terraced rice field systems. Correlated to this discussion, this article examines the applicability of the “house” concept in defining Ifugao social organization. Results of my ethnographic investigations suggest that the house concept complements kinship analysis, and thus, contributes to a better understanding of Ifugao social relationships. Moreover, this article argues that the agricultural field becomes the node of Ifugao social relationships. In this sense, the agricultural field becomes an emergent property that defines Ifugao social organization. This study provides archaeologists with a model to investigate the precolonial social structure of the Ifugao

Land Use Change in a Pericolonial Society: Intensification and Diversification in Ifugao, Philippines Between 1570 and 1800 CE

Land use modelling is increasingly used by archaeologists and palaeoecologists seeking to quantify and compare the changing influence of humans on the environment. In Southeast Asia, the intensification of rice agriculture and the arrival of European colonizers have both been seen as major catalysts for deforestation, soil erosion, and biodiversity change. Here we consider the Tuwali-Ifugao people of the Cordillera Central (Luzon, Philippines), who resisted Spanish colonial subjugation from the 16th to the mid-nineteenth century, in part through the development of a world-renowned system of intensive wet-rice terrace agriculture. To quantify changes in how the Tuwali-Ifugao used their environment, we model land use in Old Kiyyangan Village, a long-inhabited settlement, at two timepoints: circa 1570 CE, prior to the Spanish arrival in Luzon, and circa 1800 CE, before the village was sacked by Spanish military expeditions. Our model demonstrates that between 1570 and 1800 the adoption of rice as a staple and the corresponding expansion in terrace agriculture, along with a general diversification of diet and land use, enabled the village’s population to double without increasing total land use area. Further, this major intensification led to the solidification of social hierarchies and occurred without a proportional increase in deforestation

Plant Microfossil Results from Old Kiyyangan Village: Looking for the Introduction and Expansion of Wet-field Rice (Oryza sativa) Cultivation in the Ifugao Rice Terraces, Philippine Cordilleras

Pollen, phytolith, and starch analyses were carried out on 12 samples from two trenches in Old Kiyyangan Village, Ifugao Province, providing evidence for human activity from ca. 810–750 cal. b.p. Seed phytoliths and endosperm starch of cf. rice (Oryza sativa), coincident with aquatic Potamogeton pollen and sponge spicule remains, provide preliminary evidence for wet-field cultivation of rice at the site. The first rice remains appear ca. 675 cal. b.p. in terrace sediments. There is a marked increase in these remains after ca. 530–470 cal. b.p., supporting previous studies suggesting late expansion of the cultivation of wet-field rice in this area. The study represents initial, sediment-derived, ancient starch evidence for O. sativa, and initial, sediment-derived, ancient phytolith evidence for this species in the Philippines

Genome analysis traces regional dispersal of rice in Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

The dispersal of rice (Oryza sativa) following domestication influenced massive social and cultural changes across South, East, and Southeast Asia. The history of dispersal across islands of Southeast Asia, and the role of Taiwan and the Austronesian expansion in this process remain largely unresolved. Here, we reconstructed the routes of dispersal of O. sativa ssp. japonica rice through Taiwan and the northern Philippines using whole-genome re-sequencing of indigenous rice landraces coupled with archaeological and paleoclimate data. Our results indicate that japonica rice found in the northern Philippines diverged from Indonesian landraces as early as 3500 BP. In contrast, rice cultivated by the indigenous peoples of the Taiwanese mountains has complex origins. It comprises two distinct populations, each best explained as a result of admixture between temperate japonica that presumably came from northeast Asia, and tropical japonica from the northern Philippines and mainland Southeast Asia respectively. We find that the temperate japonica component of these indigenous Taiwan populations diverged from northeast Asia subpopulations at about 2600 BP, while gene flow from the northern Philippines occurred before ∼1300 years BP. This coincides with a period of intensified trade established across the South China Sea. Finally, we find evidence for positive selection acting on distinct genomic regions in different rice subpopulations, indicating local adaptation associated with the spread of japonica rice