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Holocene Large Mammal Extinctions in Palawan Island, Philippines

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Climate Change and Human Responses

Part of the book series: Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology ((VERT))

Abstract

Zooarchaeological assemblages from northern Palawan, Philippines document the changing composition of the island’s mammal fauna during the Late Quaternary. Ille Cave site has a well-dated archaeological sequence dating from the Terminal Pleistocene to the Holocene that includes identifications of tiger, two species of deer and a canid. This faunal record is compared with that of Pasimbahan Cave, which has an assemblage of Middle to Late Holocene age based on artifact associations, biostratigraphic correlation and preliminary radiocarbon dates. At least three large mammals were extirpated in the Holocene. The asynchronous timing of the extinctions signals different trajectories and dynamics of extinction, likely resulting from a combination of climatic, geographic and anthropogenic factors. These records also chronicle human response to these environmental changes. As deer populations on the island diminish by the Middle Holocene, human foragers in the Dewil Valley switch to the Palawan bearded pig as their main large mammal resource.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Project Directors of the Palawan Island Palaeohistoric Project Prof. Victor Paz (University of the Philippines), Dr. Helen Lewis (University of Dublin), and Mr. Wilfredo Ronquillo (National Museum of the Philippines) for their continuing support in our research endeavours. The authors are also grateful to Dr. Lawrence Heaney (Field Museum of Natural History) for his guidance, and to Mr. Emil Robles for his aid in the environmental reconstructions, maps and profiles. Much gratitude is also dedicated to the curators of the Mammal Division/Section of the following museums for providing access to their reference collections: FMNH, National Museum of Natural History, Harvard University Zooarchaeology Laboratory and Museum of Comparative Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, and the California Academy of Sciences. The research of JO was supported by a Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS East and Southeast Asian Archaeology and Early History Research Fellowship and an outright research grant from the University of the Philippines Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Development (UP OVCRD). Radiocarbon dating was funded by the UP OVCRD and conducted by the Waikato Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory (University of Waikato) under the supervision of Dr. Alan Hogg and Dr. Fiona Petchey. The research of PJP was supported by a separate UP OVCRD grant and an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship award FT100100527. Participation in the International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ) session “Climate Change, Human Response and Zooarchaeology” (from which this volume derives) was made possible for JO by a UP Research Dissemination Grant and funding from the ICAZ. The authors are also grateful to two anonymous reviewers whose insightful comments and suggestions helped to improve the final version of this contribution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines

    Janine Ochoa

  2. School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2612, Australia

    Philip J. Piper

  3. Archaeological Studies Program, Palma Hall, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines

    Philip J. Piper

Authors
  1. Janine Ochoa
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  2. Philip J. Piper
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Correspondence to Janine Ochoa .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Manitoba Department of Anthropology, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

    Gregory Monks

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Ochoa, J., Piper, P.J. (2017). Holocene Large Mammal Extinctions in Palawan Island, Philippines. In: Monks, G. (eds) Climate Change and Human Responses. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1106-5_4

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