In a news reporting class in Silliman
University, Dr. Crispin Maslog said that if you want to study a man,
you take the contents of his wastebasket. This advice is popular in
other sciences, such as forensics, zoology, and archaeology. Put "trash
important in archaeology" in google.com and you'll find numerous
references. One website is socialstudiesforkids.com.
It says, "It might sound a little silly, but archaeologists can
find out a lot about people by looking through their trash." In
2006, a trash
midden in Alaska has changed a popular belief about Inupiat Eskimos.
On August 5, 2003, Xavier University archaeologist
Dr. Erlinda M. Burton couldn't contain her excitement when she found
a midden at the bottom of Obsidian Hill in Huluga. A midden is "a
mound or deposit containing shells, animal bones, and other refuse
that indicates the site of a human settlement."
From the opposite side of the hill came archaeologists
and teachers Leee Anthony Neri and Clyde Jagoon, representing the University
of the Philippines-Archaeological Studies Program (UP-ASP) and the
National Museum. They were examining the damage on the Huluga Open
Site because of the road project of former mayor Vicente Y. Emano.
Neri saw me holding a piece of bone and quickly but quietly extended
a plastic bag in front of me. I hesitated but gave the piece to him.
Two things Burton did immediately: She wrote to the
National Museum, asking for a permit to dig at the midden. She explained
that her archaeology students would help. So, the project would be
at NO COST to the government.
Then she requested the lot owner Wilson Cabaluna,
a City Tourism Office employee, to protect the same area. Strangely,
however, the National Museum didn't reply for weeks, despite government
service rule that letters should be responded in 15 days. A letter
would reach Burton three months later. And Cabaluna refused to cooperate,
digging a pit in the midden. This pit would be described in a UP-ASP
report as one of two "Treasure Hunter's Pits".
Alarmed, I sent pictures of the midden and found fossils
to National Museum lawyer Trixie Angeles, but received no response.
Left and above: Small animal bones and shells found
in Huluga midden
In October 2003, Burton presented Huluga at the fourth
annual conference of the Kapisanan ng mga Arkeologists ng Pilipinas
(KAPI). She showed pictures of the midden and found contents.
In December 2003, Burton proceeded with her planned
excavation without a National Museum permit. She and her students,
however, dug only in the lot of Danilo Bacarro, after getting his approval.
Meanwhile, to Burton's dismay, Cabaluna continued digging nearby and
she had no authority to stop him. Burton's team found only earthenware
sherds in Bacarro's lot.
During the last week of October 2004 and the first
two weeks of November 2004, UP-ASP, led by Dr. Victor Paz, dug on top
of the heavily eroded Obsidian Hill, only about 30 meters away from
the midden, without consulting Burton and other local anthropologists
and historians.
Afterwards, even before their colleagues in Manila
could check the evidence (or lack of it), and WITHOUT consulting local
scientists, UP-ASP held a press conference, where they announced that
the Huluga Open Site -- which includes the hill -- is a "habitation,
but unlikely a settlement". They didn't mention the midden.
Months later, UP-ASP published a report of the excavations.
The report also states NO midden in Huluga, and describes Huluga as "camp-like",
not a settlement. It also ignored the fossils and artifacts found by
the Heritage Conservation Advocates (HCA) in 2003. One such relic is
the whale harpoon, identified by UP-ASP member Dr. Eusebio Dizon, who
said the tool has counterparts in Siquijor, Bohol, and Cebu. The Huluga
whale harpoon has a National Museum accession number: X-1991-Q2-484.
Dr. Richard Ellis of the American Museum of Natural History gave me
photos showing a similar sperm whale harpoon in Lomblen Island of Indonesia.
Lomblen is 2,000 KILOMETERS south of Huluga.
UP-ASP also didn't mention the Copper 8 Maravedis
coin. The coin is minted between 1788 and 1808, more than a century
after Spanish missionaries landed in Cagayan de Oro in 1622.
There are other relics found in Huluga before UP-ASP
came in to dig. Why were these ignored by UP-ASP and why didn't the
National Museum question UP-ASP for this negligence? What's happening
to the educational system of the University of the Philippines?
I don't know, but these are the facts: Neri was a
leader of the UP- ASP team. Her mother worked in the City Planning
and Development Office under Emano. In 2003, he told me that a two-week
excavation in Huluga would cost P80, 000. Emano gave his UP-ASP group
P450, 000 for the same
duration -- and that is just on record.
Louis S.B. Leakey said, "You must not leave a
stone unturned." Logic and the scientific method forbid a fallacy
called "jumping to conclusion". UP-ASP jumped to conclusion
when it made a declaration about Huluga without considering all available
evidence. This is like determining a person's gender without checking
the genitals. It is absurd and is not recommended even by quack doctors.  |
