The Short History of the Ifugao Rice Terraces: A Local Response to the Spanish Conquest

2019/03/17 by Stephen Acabado, Jared Koller, Chin-hsin Liu +6 · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Maritime and Coastal Archaeology #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies

paper · doi:10.1080/00934690.2019.1574159

openalex publication_date 2019/03/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

Establishing the construction sequence of agricultural terraces is extremely complicated due to the nature of their technological foundation and use. A number of methodological approaches have been developed to address this difficulty, such as bulk soil 14C dating, Optically-Stimulated Luminescence (OSL), sediment grain size, or a combination of these, but a fundamental problem of stratigraphic disturbance still exists. In this article, we utilize multiple datasets, including radiocarbon determinations, faunal isotopic signatures, human osteological remains, archaeobotanical data sets, energetics assessments, and spatial data to establish the origins of Philippine Cordillera rice terraces. Dominant historical narratives in the region suggest a 2000–3000 b.p. inception of the terrace systems, but previous Bayesian modeling and current archaeobotanical, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic data indicate that the shift to wet-rice cultivation is a recent phenomenon and a response to the intrusion of the Spanish Empire in the northern highland Philippines.

Citations

• The development of subsistence system models for Island Southeast Asia and Near Oceania: The nature and role of arboriculture and arboreal-based economies
• Defining Ifugao Social Organization: “House,” Field, and Self-Organizing Principles in the Northern Philippines
• A Bayesian approach to dating agricultural terraces: a case from the Philippines
• The Archaeology of Pericolonialism: Responses of the “Unconquered” to Spanish Conquest and Colonialism in Ifugao, Philippines
• Resistance through rituals: The role of Philippine “native pig” (Sus scrofa) in Ifugao feasting and socio-political organization
• Notices of the Pagan Igorots in 1789
• Plant Microfossil Results from Old Kiyyangan Village: Looking for the Introduction and Expansion of Wet-field Rice (Oryza sativa) Cultivation in the Ifugao Rice Terraces, Philippine Cordilleras
• Zones of refuge: Resisting conquest in the northern Philippine highlands through environmental practice

Cited by

• Architecture of the Philippines [wikipedia]