Paper short abstract:

We compare the results of zooarchaeological analyses that we have conducted on several archaeological sites in Luzon with ethnozoological and anthropological accounts of indigenous groups in the region made during the 19th and early 20th century, focusing on the role played by domestic animals.

Paper long abstract:

Early agricultural communities are proposed to have entered the Philippines from China via Taiwan between 2500 to 2000 cal. BC bringing with them for the first time pottery and ground stone technology and a suite of domestic animals, which included pigs, dogs and chicken. These domestic animals, which all originated from the mainland, are traditionally believed to represent part of a new subsistence strategy introduced to Island Southeast Asia by these early farming/sailing as they moved south and east through Indonesia and to the Pacific. However, results of recent zooarchaeological analyses in the Philippines show that there was no dramatic shift from hunting to animal husbandry for subsistence upon the introduction of these domestic animals. Instead, adoption of domestic animals by early communities could have been driven by other socioeconomic reasons such as status and ceremony as suggested by ethnographic observations. In this paper we will compare the results of zooarchaeological analyses that we have conducted on bone assemblages from several archaeological sites in Luzon Island with ethnozoological and anthropological accounts of indigenous groups in the region. We would focus and summarize the ethnographic accounts made in the island during the 19th and early 20th century, specifically on the role that domestic animals played in these communities. Our goal is to link the growing evidence from zooarchaeology with observations made from past communities to gain a more holistic view of human-animal interactions in early agricultural communities in the island.