ABSTRACT
The Philippine archipelago, lying between 5 and 20 degrees north latitude, is made up of more than 7,000 islands scattered over a 300,000 square kilometer area. The archaeology of the Philippine archipelago encompasses a study of myriad topics: of initial human occupation; of a more than 10,000-year span of hunter-gatherer societies evolving within dynamic environmental and cultural contexts; of Austronesian language expansion; of rice farming communities; of interactions with the larger Asian region; of maritime technology; of elaborate burial practices; of the emergence of trade-oriented polities; and of Spanish conquest, to name a few. This chapter focuses particularly on the complex lowland polities which arose during the first and second millennia ad in various areas of the archipelago. From the central Philippine islands, several contemporary lowland Visayan polities, such as Cebu, Dumaguete, and Tanjay are archaeologically well known.
