Zones of Refuge: Resisting Conquest in the Northern Philippine Highlands through Agricultural Practice

Summary

The origins of the extensive wet-rice terrace complex in Ifugao, Philippines have been recently dated to ca. 400 years ago. Previously thought to be at least 2,000 years old, the recent findings of the Ifugao Archaeological Project show that landscape modification for terraced wet-rice cultivation started at ca. 1600. The archaeological record implies that economic intensification and political consolidation occurred in Ifugao soon after the appearance of the Spanish empire in the northern Philippines (ca. 1575). The foremost indication of this shift is the adoption of wet-rice agriculture in the highlands, which served as zones of refuge for local populations. I argue that the subsistence shift was precipitated by political pressures and was followed by political and economic consolidation. Wet-rice agriculture was an expression of imperial resistance; it also facilitated political integration. Using paleoethnobotanical, faunal, and artifactual datasets, this paper documents the process that allowed the Ifugao to resist conquest.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeologies of Empire and Environment   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14713