The history of the Philippines is long and complex, dating back to the earliest

hominin activity in the archipelago at least 709,000 years ago. The earliest known
anatomically modern human was from Tabon Caves in Palawan dating about 47,000
years. Negrito groups were the first inhabitants to settle in the prehistoric
Philippines. By around 3000 BC, seafaring Austronesians, who form the majority of
the current population, migrated southward from Taiwan.

The Philippines were first encountered by Europeans in 1521, when Ferdinand

Magellan landed on Cebu. Magellan was killed in a battle with local warriors, but his
crew eventually returned to Spain with news of the islands.

The Spanish established a colony in the Philippines in 1565, and ruled the islands
for over 300 years. During this time, the Philippines was converted to Christianity
and became a major center of Spanish trade in Asia.

In the 19th century, the Philippines began to demand independence from Spain.
The Philippine Revolution began in 1896, and the First Philippine Republic was
declared in 1899. However, the Spanish were able to suppress the revolution, and
the Philippines remained a Spanish colony until 1898.

The United States acquired the Philippines from Spain after the Spanish-American
War in 1898. The United States ruled the Philippines as a colony for 48 years,
during which time the country was granted limited self-government.

The Philippines finally achieved independence in 1946. Since then, the country has
experienced a number of challenges, including political instability, corruption, and
natural disasters. However, the Philippines has also made significant progress in
recent years, and is now considered to be a middle-income country.

Stone tools and fossils of butchered animal remains discovered in Rizal, Kalinga are
evidences of early hominins in the country to as early as 709,000 years.[1]
Researchers found 57 stone tools near rhinoceros bones bearing cut marks and
some bones smashed open, suggesting that the early humans were after the
nutrient-rich marrow.[21] Oldest human fossil is from the third metatarsal of the
Callao Man of Cagayan at about 67,000 years.[2][22]

This and the Angono Petroglyphs in Rizal suggest the presence of human settlement
before the arrival of the Negritos and Austronesian speaking people.[23][24] The
Callao Man remains and 12 bones of three hominin individuals found by subsequent
excavations in Callao Cave were later identified to belong in a new species named
Homo luzonensis.[3] For modern humans, the Tabon Man remains are the still
oldest known at about 47,000 years.[4]

The Negritos were early settlers,[5] but their appearance in the Philippines has not
been reliably dated.[25] They were followed by speakers of the Malayo-Polynesian
languages, a branch of the Austronesian language family. The first Austronesians
reached the Philippines at 3000–2200 BC, settling the Batanes Islands and northern
Luzon.

From there, they rapidly spread downwards to the rest of the islands of the
Philippines and Southeast Asia, as well as voyaging further east to reach the
Northern Mariana Islands by around 1500 BC.[6][26][27][28] They assimilated the
earlier Australo-Melanesian Negritos, resulting in the modern Filipino ethnic groups
that all display various ratios of genetic admixture between Austronesian and
Negrito groups.[29][30] Before the expansion out of Taiwan, archaeological,
linguistic and genetic evidence had linked Austronesian speakers in Insular
Southeast Asia to cultures such as the Hemudu, its successor the Liangzhu[28][31]
and Dapenkeng in Neolithic China.[32][33][34][35][36]

The most widely accepted theory of the population of the islands is the "Out-of-
Taiwan" model that follows the Austronesian expansion during the Neolithic in a
series of maritime migrations originating from Taiwan that spread to the islands of
the Indo-Pacific; ultimately reaching as far as New Zealand, Easter Island, and
Madagascar.[26][37] Austronesians themselves originated from the Neolithic rice-
cultivating pre-Austronesian civilizations of the Yangtze River delta in coastal
southeastern China pre-dating the conquest of those regions by the Han Chinese.

This includes civilizations like the Liangzhu culture, Hemudu culture, and the
Majiabang culture.[38] It connects speakers of the Austronesian languages in a
common linguistic and genetic lineage, including the Taiwanese indigenous peoples,
Islander Southeast Asians, Chams, Islander Melanesians, Micronesians,
Polynesians, and the Malagasy people. Aside from language and genetics, they also
share common cultural markers like multihull and outrigger boats, tattooing, rice
cultivation, wetland agriculture, teeth blackening, jade carving, betel nut chewing,
ancestor worship, and the same domesticated plants and animals (including dogs,
pigs, chickens, yams, bananas, sugarcane, and coconuts).[26][37][39]

A 2021 genetic study examining representatives of 115 indigenous communities

found evidence of at least five independent waves of early human migration.
Negrito groups, divided between those in Luzon and those in Mindanao, may come
from a single wave and diverged subsequently, or through two separate waves.
This likely occurred sometime after 46,000 years ago. Another Negrito migration
entered Mindanao sometime after 25,000 years ago. Two early East Asian waves
were detected, one most strongly evidenced among the Manobo people who live in
inland Mindanao, and the other in the Sama-Bajau and related people of the Sulu
archipelago, Zamboanga Peninsula, and Palawan. The admixture found in the Sama
people indicates a relationship with the Htin and Mlabri people of mainland
Southeast Asia, both peoples being speakers of an Austroasiatic language and
reflects a similar genetic signal found in western Indonesia. These happened
sometime after 15,000 years ago and 12,000 years ago respectively, around the
time the last glacial period was coming to an end. Austronesians, either from
Southern China or Taiwan, were found to have come in at least two distinct waves.
The first, occurring perhaps between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, brought the
ancestors of indigenous groups that today live around the Cordillera Central
mountain range. Later migrations brought other Austronesian groups, along with
agriculture, and the languages of these recent Austronesian migrants effectively
replaced those existing populations. In all cases, new immigrants appear to have
mixed to some degree with existing populations. The integration of Southeast Asia
into Indian Ocean trading networks around 2,000 years ago also shows some
impact, with South Asian genetic signals present within some Sama-Bajau
communities. There is also some Papuan migration to Southeast Mindanao as
Papuan genetic signatures were detected in the Sangil and Blaan ethnic groups.[40]

By 1000 BC, the inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago had developed into four
distinct kinds of peoples: tribal groups, such as the Aetas, Hanunoo, Ilongots and
the Mangyan who depended on hunter-gathering and were concentrated in forests;
warrior societies, such as the Isneg and Kalinga who practiced social ranking and
ritualized warfare and roamed the plains; the petty plutocracy of the Ifugao
Cordillera Highlanders, who occupied the mountain ranges of Luzon; and the harbor
principalities of the estuarine civilizations that grew along rivers and seashores
while participating in trans-island maritime trade.[41] It was also during the first
millennium BC that early metallurgy was said to have reached the archipelagos of
maritime Southeast Asia via trade with India[42][43]

Around 300–700 AD, the seafaring peoples of the islands traveling in balangays
began to trade with the Indianized kingdoms in the Malay Archipelago and the
nearby East Asian principalities, adopting influences from both Buddhism and
Hinduism.[44]

Maritime Jade Road