page_title: History of the Philippines
section_title: The Jade culture
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Philippines / Prehistory / The Jade culture
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Un lingling-o, boucle d'oreille de certains indigènes de Luçon. Exposition du Musée du Quai Branly (Paris) "Philippines, Archipel des échanges".English: A lingling-o, a kind of pendant from Luzon, north-Philippinas.
context_page_description: The history of the Philippines is believed to have begun with the arrival of the first humans using rafts or boats at least 709,000 years ago as suggested by the discovery of Pleistocene stone tools and butchered animal remains associated with hominin activity. Homo luzonensis, a species of archaic humans, was present on the island of Luzon at least 67,000 years ago. The earliest known modern human was from Tabon Cave in Palawan dating about 47,000 years. Negrito groups were the first inhabitants to settle in the prehistoric Philippines. After that, groups of Austronesians later migrated to the islands.
  Scholars generally believe that these social groups eventually developed into various settlements or polities with varying degrees of economic specialization, social stratification, and political organization. Some of these settlements achieved such a scale of social complexity that some scholars believe they should be considered early states.
context_section_description: Jade artifacts made from white and green nephrite and dating as far back as 2000–1500 BC, have been discovered at a number of archeological excavations in the Philippines since the 1930s. The artifacts have been both tools like adzes and chisels, and ornaments such as lingling-o earrings, bracelets and beads. Tens of thousands were found in a single site in Batangas. The jade is said to have originated nearby in Taiwan and is also found in many other areas in insular and mainland Southeast Asia. These artifacts are said to be evidence of long range communication between prehistoric Southeast Asian societies.
  Nephrite, otherwise known as Jade, is a mineral widely used throughout Asia as ornaments or for decorative purposes. The oldest jade artefacts in Asia (6000 BC) were found in China where they were used as the primary hardstone of Chinese sculpturing. In 3000 BC, jade production in the Hongsan and Liangzhu cultures of China reached its peak. During this period, the knowledge of jade craftsmanship spread across the sea to Taiwan and eventually to the Philippines. The artefacts discovered in several sites in the Philippines were made from nephrite. Nephrite excavated in the Philippines were of two types: white nephrite and green nephrite.
caption: Metal lingling-o earrings from Luzon.
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