The Development of Centralized Craft Production Systems in a.d. 500–1600 Philippine Chiefdoms

Abstract

Ethnohistoric sources suggest that at the time of European contact, the coastlines and interior river valleys of most of the major islands of the Philippines were dotted with politically complex, socially stratified societies, organized on the level of what cultural evolutionists refer to as “chiefdoms”. Recent regional-scale archaeological research in the Philippines indicates that these coastal chiefdoms have considerable time depth. Settlement hierarchies, complex mortuary patterns, and other archaeological indicators of socio-political complexity extend well into the first millennium a.d. Spanish and Chinese texts refer to Philippine chiefs as the central figures in complex regional-scale economies and international-scale trade. Hereditary chiefs controlled the agricultural productivity of “commoners” through restrictive land tenure, they mobilized surplus for elite use through formalized tribute systems, and they amassed “wealth” through sponsorship of luxury good craftsmen and through participation in foreign prestige-good trade. The accumulated “material fund of power” was used competitively by-hiefs to enhance their social ranking, to strengthen political alliances, and to expand their regional political authority.