[Time Trowel] When assumptions become history in the Ifugao rice terraces

A trowel (/ˈtraʊ.əl/), in the hands of an archaeologist, is like a trusty sidekick – a tiny, yet mighty, instrument that uncovers ancient secrets, one well-placed scoop at a time. It’s the Sherlock Holmes of the excavation site, revealing clues about the past with every delicate swipe.

The current debates surrounding General Education (GE) courses in the Philippines highlight why the study of history deserves attention. History is not just about memorizing dates or repeating familiar narratives. It is about examining how knowledge is produced, who produces it, and what evidence supports widely accepted claims.

Take, for example, the enduring belief that the Ifugao Rice Terraces are 2,000 years old.

Recent archaeological research suggests that the Ifugao Rice Terraces are much younger than the commonly repeated claim. However, many Filipinos still learn this older date through textbooks, tourism campaigns, documentaries, and social media. Many scholars and institutions continue to repeat the claim with confidence, even though decades of archaeological research no longer support it.

Why should we care about this debate? Because understanding history also requires understanding the historians and archaeologists who wrote it, the assumptions that shaped their arguments, and the evidence they used — or did not use — to support their conclusions.

This column examines the gaps in the archaeological, historical, and oral tradition records that would support a long history for the terraces, while also looking at the scholars who originally argued for such antiquity.

For many years, Marlon Martin and I have written about the terraces and the growing evidence pointing to a more recent history of wet-rice terrace construction in Ifugao. Revisiting this history can make some people uncomfortable because the terraces are closely connected to ideas of heritage and identity. But archaeology is about studying evidence, asking questions, and revising interpretations when new information challenges older ideas. Reexamining the history of the terraces does not diminish their importance or the achievements of the Ifugao.

Early scholars such as Roy F. Barton and H. Otley Beyer argued that the terraces were built 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. However, these claims became popular before archaeologists had direct scientific evidence to support them. Instead, the terraces were made to fit larger ideas about migration and civilization. At the time, some scholars believed societies developed in stages from “primitive” to “advanced.” These ideas influenced how they interpreted Philippine history. This background is significant because scholarship is shaped by the politics and ideas of its time. If we ignore that history, we stop asking how those conclusions were produced in the first place.

Today, many scholars in archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, history, and genetics have already criticized or abandoned Beyer’s Waves of Migration Theory. The theory reflected early twentieth-century thinking that ranked societies according to supposed levels of civilization. It also used racial categories that separated people into “primitive” and “advanced” groups. Yet discussions about the terraces still often repeat Beyer’s conclusions as if they are unquestionable facts.

Good scholarship requires testing claims against evidence rather than treating earlier interpretations as settled truth. Otherwise, interpretations can persist long after the evidence behind them has been questioned. It is also important to ask whether these claims remained influential partly because they came from American scholars during the colonial period, when colonial authority strongly shaped what counted as official knowledge in the Philippines.

The long-history model shows how these colonial and intellectual frameworks worked. The notion did not begin with archaeological excavations or scientific dating methods. Instead, it grew from the impressions of early scholars like Barton. In 1919, after seeing the terraces in places such as Asin, Hapao, and Banaue, Barton wrote that the terraces looked so impressive that they seemed to be “a work of tens of centuries.” Because he believed the Ifugao used only simple tools, he assumed they could not have reshaped mountainsides in a short time. From this inkling, he concluded that the Ifugao must have constructed the terraces at least 2,000 years ago. Later, Beyer included this idea in his Waves of Migration Theory. These interpretations reflected the beliefs of their time, including colonial assumptions about Indigenous peoples and technology.

Under Beyer’s model, Philippine history was explained as a series of migration “waves,” with each group supposedly bringing a higher level of culture and civilization into the archipelago. Beyer classified the Ifugao as part of the second wave of “Malays” who were pushed into the mountains when later groups settled the lowlands. Because the Ifugao were thought to have lived in the Cordilleras for thousands of years, the terraces were also assumed to be ancient. In this way, the dating of the terraces became tied to a migration theory that many scholars today no longer accept. Yet if the Waves of Migration Theory has already been rejected by many scholars, why do we still hold on to the long-history model that grew from it?

In other words, the idea that the terraces were ancient came before any direct archaeological evidence existed to support it.

Historical documentation also raises questions about the long-history model. Spanish chroniclers wrote about many parts of northern Luzon beginning in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. If the massive rice terraces had already existed for 2,000 years, historians would expect more detailed early descriptions of them. After all, such an extensive agricultural landscape would have been something to write home about. However, detailed accounts appeared surprisingly late. The earliest known Spanish descriptions of the terraces dates only to 1801, when Fray Juan Molano described the landscape in a letter. For such a large and impressive agricultural system, the silence of earlier records is difficult to explain.

Beyond the documentary record, the broader evidentiary picture remains weak. No archaeological, historical, environmental, or oral tradition evidence firmly supports a 2,000-year chronology for the terraces. Yet the claim continues to circulate as fact, defended more strongly than the evidence itself.

Still, none of this reduces the importance of the terraces or the achievements of the Ifugao. Archaeology presents a more active and complex picture of Indigenous engineering and adaptation in the Cordilleras. The terraces do not need to be 2,000 years old to remain extraordinary.

The first archaeologist to systematically work in the region, Robert F. Maher, already questioned the long-history model in the 1970s. Maher concluded that “the idea that construction of the great Ifugao terrace systems must have taken thousands of years no longer seems tenable.” His work highlighted how difficult it is to date agricultural terraces and showed why archaeologists rely on multiple lines of evidence, including archaeology, oral traditions, spatial analysis, and environmental data, to better understand the history of the Ifugao Rice Terraces.

This debate also shows why the study of history remains valuable, especially in General Education courses. History trains students to evaluate evidence, question assumptions, and examine how politics, colonialism, nationalism, and ideology shape interpretations of the past. In an age of misinformation, social media algorithms, and recycled historical claims, the ability to critically examine evidence has become increasingly necessary. – Rappler.com

Stephen B. Acabado is professor of anthropology at the University of California-Los Angeles. He directs the Ifugao and Bicol Archaeological Projects, research programs that engage community stakeholders. He grew up in Tinambac, Camarines Sur.