User:Danielaa161/Emergence of Agriculture in the Philippines

Emergence of Agriculture in the Philippines

Factors that led to Farming

Until the end of the Pleistocene, all people inhabiting the planet were hunter-gatherers. Between 8500 and 2500, people switched to farming at different times and at different places around the world.

Climate Change

Chart indicating the change in temperature conditions after the Pleistocene.

The post-glacial climate change after 15,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene, made the climate much warmer and more humid. This led to an increase in the productivity of the tropical layers of the earth. In addition, the climate change led to severe cold periods that were not conducive for hunter-gathering. Areas like China and the Levant, for example, began selecting for certain features in their crops that would allow them to persist through the sporadic cold periods.

Advantages of Farming

Agricultural expansions were a result of several advantages that farming had over hunting and gathering. One advantage was that farming yielded more food per area of land. This meant that farmers could grow enough food to support larger populations of people. Another advantage the farming lifestyle is that it is largely sedentary, unlike the mobility of hunter-gathering. This allowed for surpluses stocked up in case of difficult growing periods to curb starvation. Lastly, the large and crowded farming societies brought about epidemic infectious diseases that farmers became resistant to. However, these diseases affected hunter-gatherers because they were not immune to them.

Farming-Language Dispersal Hypothesis

Austronesian Language Family

The Austronesian language family is a group of languages spoken throughout parts of Southeast Asia including Taiwan, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The history of this language family covers the time of Pre-Austronesian and the Austronesian. Pre-Austronesian speaking people were hunter-gatherers. They began in China then colonized Taiwan, then dispersed Southwards toward the Philippines and into Northern Indonesia. In an ethnolinguistic sense, Austronesian speaking people began 5,500 years ago in Taiwan and they were presumed to be farmers.

Bellwood and Renfrew's Proposal

With the Austronesian language family and its dispersal in mind, Peter Bellwood and Colin Renfrew proposed one of the first ideas highlighting the origin of agriculture in Island Southeast Asia. Bellwood and Renfrew argued that, because of agriculture, the Austronesian speaking people migrated from their homeland in Taiwan to the Philippines and Indo-Malaysia then reached the Pacific after passing New Guinea. Proto-Austronesian, a reconstruction of the Austronesian languages, shows evidence of repetition in many of the same vocabulary terms for agriculture. The vocabulary is used as evidence for agriculture being the driving force behind the migration because it includes words like rice, millet, pigs that are very similar across languages in Island Southeast Asia. It is believed that rice-based agriculture allowed Austronesian speaking people to migrate to regions inhabited by hunter-gatherers and colonize the area or replace them to a degree. The approximate date of when Austronesian-speaking people began migrating from Taiwan to the Philippines is between ca. 4,500- 4,000 years ago.

Opposing Views on the Farming-Language Dispersal Hypothesis

Despite the prevalence of Bellwood’s farming-language dispersal hypothesis, different scholars (cite different opposing articles) have disagreed with the farming-language dispersal hypothesis and have put forward different possible factors to consider when thinking about the emergence of agriculture in Island Southeast Asia.

Lack of Archaeological Evidence

Tim Denham, a university professor of anthropology, author, and research fellow,  argued that there is not enough archaeological evidence to support the use of agriculture in Island Southeast Asia before 3,000 years ago. Using multidisciplinary evidence, including the origin and spread of plant and animal domesticates in Island Southeast Asia, Denham proposed that East Asian crops are found in ISEA, but only after the period of Austronesian-speaking peoples' expansion. He argues for the lateness of the emergence of agriculture in Island Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, and further suggests that indigenous peoples of Island Southeast Asia were active agents in the utilization of farming techniques during the mid-Holocene. Contrast to the idea that indigenous peoples of ISEA were hunter-gatherers who were overthrown by farming societies, he claims that indigenous peoples integrated new plants into former cultivation techniques in different places and in different ways, as well as adopted new strategies for animal domestication.

Population Genetics

The application of population genetics and its relation to early migration in Island Southeast Asia was proposed by Tim Denham and Mark Donahue. They disagree with the complete integration of the present hunter-gatherer groups of the region by the Austronesian migrants from Taiwan. They debunk the idea of the Austronesian-Speaking peoples possessing dominance because of their agricultural practices over their hunter-gatherer counterparts and instead propose integration from both the migrants and the present social groups into complex cultural groups. Evidence disagreeing with the Austronesian dominance of early peoples are presented in the DNA of the Island Southeast Asia populations. Only a fifth of the population could relate their genes to the out-of-Taiwan hypothesis suggesting that there was no absolute replacement of the preexisting groups of this area by migrants.

Neolithic Expansion Without Farming Practices

The Neolithic is usually marked with the transition of hunter-gatherer practices to sedentary agricultural practices (see Neolithic wiki page). The idea that Neolithic expansion in Island Southeast Asia did not involve farming practices was described by Matthew Spriggs, an active voice in this archaeological topic. Material culture of this epoch such as the red-slipped pottery marks the fusion of different social groups including migrants from outside of these islands as well as individuals already situated in the area (spriggs). Spriggs describes that “subsistence changes were not needed to change identities” showing that although changes did occur in this region it did not necessarily include farming practices (spriggs).

Roger Blench, supports the idea of the agriculture failure of Austronesian migrants and suggests that migration expansion and cultural assimilation by religious practices was more prevalent rather than agricultural practices. He emphasizes the idea that complex societies did not have to involve sedentary farming practices and that hunting and foraging could have been the main provider for subsistence practices (Blench).

Agriculture Today

Leading Crops and Global Exports

Agriculture is a primary source of revenue in the Philippines. The main agricultural crops in the Philippines are; rice, corn, coconut, sugarcane and bananas. Rice is the main agricultural crop and the staple food crop of the Philippines. The top agricultural export products are coconut oil, fruits, and vegetables. Countries including; United States, Japan, and Europe are all countries of exports for Philippine products.