Today, Filipino seamen dominate the world’s maritime trade — while recent archaeological finds suggest their deep romance with the ocean may be in their genes as their ancestors were accomplished navigators.

Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) professor Dr. Alfred F. Pawlik delivered the talk, “Ancient Technologies, Forgotten Navigators: Early Human Migration and Seafaring in the Philippine Archipelago,” in which he presented findings from over 15 years of the Mindoro Archaeology Project, which he headed with collaborators.

The research highlights the Palawan-Mindoro Corridor as a key route for anatomically modern humans (homo sapiens) entering the Wallacean region of the Philippines during the late Pleistocene period.

Excavations at sites like Bubog 1 and 2 rock shelters on Ilin Island in Occidental Mindoro, as well as nearby areas such as San Jose and Sta. Teresa in Magsaysay, uncovered some of the oldest evidence of Homo sapiens in the Philippine archipelago.

These date back at least 35,000 to 40,000 years ago. Mindoro was never land-connected to the Asian mainland, so these early arrivals required deliberate sea crossings, proving their advanced boating and navigation skills far earlier than traditionally assumed.

Pawlik’s separate 2025 publication, “Chronology and Ecology of Early Islanders in the Philippines: The Mindoro Archaeology Project,” revealed that cave and rock shelter sites in Occidental Mindoro provided evidence of early humans’ adaptation to maritime environments and their behavioral and technological complexity.

In line with the university’s breakthrough lecture initiatives, the ADMU professor and his fellow researchers proudly unveiled their latest archaeological findings in Mindoro, contributing significance and valuable evidence to the Philippines’ rich history.

“Until very recently, the common concept was that maritime technology, which advanced seafaring in their capacity to cross long distances to remote islands, was owned and introduced by the Austronesian-speaking groups who would migrate from the mainland islands via other routes, then reach the Philippines,” Pawlik said in an exclusive interview with Daily Tribune on Thursday.

“Now we know the early seafaring [by ancient people in Mindoro] and their capacity to really control the seafaring [that] reached distant islands, having the navigational knowledge to return safely and to explore the marine resources along the way,” he said.

Ancient communities

In the first part of his lecture, Pawlik introduced early civilizations in the Philippines and across Southeast Asia.

The ADMU professor noted that geographic conditions in the past, particularly during the Ice Age, differed from those of the present time when discussing human settlements in the islands.

“When we talked about the early peopling of the Philippine archipelago, the geography and the landscapes were a bit different from those of ISEA [Island Southeast Asia] nowadays. The entire Southeast Asia and globe had a quite different appearance in the so-called Ice Age,” the archaeology expert said.

Pawlik explained that Palawan belongs to the Sunda region, the only area in the country with species closely linked to mainland Asia and the Sunda Shelf.

“If we look at the map, we see two parts separated by Huxley’s line, and this is a biogeographic boundary that separates the region of Sunda, Sunda mainland, shelf region, and the oceanic part of Southeast Asia or the Sunda land and Wallacea in prehistoric times,” he said.

Pawlik pointed out that most areas of the Philippines were never connected to the mainland, making sea crossings across the archipelago necessary and feasible for the early humans.

Mindoro, on the other hand, was found to be closest to the Huxley’s line with the Palawan Corridor as a potential entry point going into the Wallacean region of the Philippines.

“[The] Mindoro island is geographically very close to the Huxley’s line along the oceanic side, and we considered what I called the Palawan corridor. So the route from prehistoric Borneo connected to the mainland through Palawan, then reaching Mindoro was a possible entry route for early human migrations,” Pawlik said.

He said the arrival and dispersal of anatomically modern humans, homo sapiens, in the Philippines is dated to 40,000 years ago, with early hominins reaching Wallacea one million years ago.

(To be continued)