Pre-Hispanic Philippines

Long before the Europeans arrived, the Philippines was far from an "undiscovered" land. Austronesian seafarers settled the islands over 30,000 years ago — the "Tabon Man" in Palawan is the oldest find of human remains in the Philippines.

The pre-colonial society was organized into Barangays — autonomous communities of 30 to 100 families, led by a Datu (chieftain). There were trade relations with China, Japan, India, Arabia, and the Srivijaya Kingdom. The Laguna Copperplate Inscription (900 AD) — the oldest written record in the Philippines — evidences active trade and a complex legal system.

The Philippines had its own written script (Baybayin), a differentiated social structure (nobles, freemen, debt slaves), distinctive tattoo art (the Visayas warriors were famous as "Pintados" — the Painted Ones), and a rich trove of oral literature and mythology. Islam arrived in the 14th century via traders from Borneo on the southern islands — the Sultanate of Sulu (1457) was a powerful Muslim empire, whose legacy is still felt in Mindanao today.