Climate change and subsistence shifts: Wet-rice agriculture in Ifugao, Philippines

Summary

The Little Ice Age was a global phenomenon beginning in the late 13th century A.D. that impacted the northern Philippines by creating more arid conditions. This was more evident in the eastern lowlands of Luzon where northeastern trade winds were typically dry. Conversely, the central highlands of Ifugao and the Cordilleras were relatively more humid due to orographic relief. These conditions, caused by periodic volcanism cooling the northern hemisphere, forced the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone south to 0-5° north latitude, exposing the northern Philippines to 5-15° north latitude to drier conditions. This may have sent lowland farmers in search of humid highland terrain, documented around 3,200 years before present in the Cagayan lowlands of Luzon, allowing for the rise of wet-rice farming after its introduction into the Philippines ca. 1400-1500 A.D. As recent research shows, the rice terraces were not 2,000 years old but date to 1400 A.D., corollary to Spanish settlement in the lowlands and emergence of mountain settlement by Ifugao and other farmers. Spanish colonialism in the 16th-17th centuries A.D. led to the rise of extensive wet-rice farming in regions peripheral to Spanish governance.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage