1. The earliest inhabitants of the Philippines were Negrito groups who migrated over 30,000 years ago. Later came Austronesian peoples who established various kingdoms across the islands by 1000 BC. 2. Major pre-colonial states included the Hindu-influenced Kingdom of Tondo on Luzon, the gold-working Rajahnate of Butuan, and the Confederation of Madyaas on Panay. Muslim sultanates like Sulu and Maguindanao were also established in the south by the 15th century. 3. By the 10th century CE, the Philippines had developed diverse societies from isolated hunter-gatherer groups to organized kingdoms engaged in regional trade networks

1. Pre-Spanish

2. Early History
 The earliest archeological evidence for
man in the archipelago is the 67,000-
year-old Callao Man of Cagayan and
the Angono Petroglyphs in Rizal, both
of whom appear to suggest the
presence of human settlement prior to
the arrival of the Negritos and
Austronesian speaking people.

3.  The Negritos are believed to have
migrated to the Philippines some
30,000 years ago from Borneo,
Sumatra, and Malaya.

4.  Negrito, proto-Malay, and Malay
peoples were the principal peoples of
the Philippine archipelago. The
Negritos migrated to the islands during
the last ice age some Upper
Paleolithic|30,000 years ago, when
land bridges connected the
archipelago to mainland Asia and
Borneo. Later migrations were by
water and took place over several
thousand years.

7.  The Negritos were early settlers but
their appearance in the Philippines
has not been reliably dated and they
were followed by speakers of the
Malayo-Polynesian languages, a
branch of the Austronesian languages,
who began to arrive in successive
waves beginning about 4000 BC,
displacing the earlier arrivals.

8.  New inhabitants come from Indonesia.
This is repeated around 1000 B.C.

9.  By 1000 BC the inhabitants of the Philippine
archipelago had developed into four distinct
kinds of peoples: tribal groups, such as the
Aetas, Hanunoo, Ilongots and the Mangyan
who depended on hunter-gathering and were
concentrated in forests; warrior societies,
such as the Isneg and Kalingas who
practiced social ranking and ritualized
warfare and roamed the plains; the petty
plutocracy of the Ifugao Cordillera
Highlanders, who occupied the mountain
ranges of Luzon; and the harbor principalities
of the estuarine civilizations that grew along
rivers and seashores while participating in
trans-island maritime trade.

10.  The Malayans followed in successive
waves. These people belonged to a
primitive epoch of Malayan culture,
which has apparently survived to this
day among certain groups such as the
Igorots. The Malayan tribes that came
later had more highly developed
material cultures.

11.  Around 300–700 CE the seafaring
peoples of the islands traveling in
balangays began to trade with the
Indianized kingdoms in the Malay
Archipelago and the nearby East
Asian principalities, adopting
influences from both Buddhism and
Hinduism.

12. Start of Recorded History
 The end of Philippine prehistory is
April 21 900 AD, the date inscribed in
the oldest Philippine document found
so far, the Laguna Copperplate
Inscription. From the details of the
document, written in Kawi script, the
bearer of a debt, Namwaran, along
with his children Lady Angkatan and
Bukah, are cleared of a debt by the
ruler of Tondo.

14.  From the various Sanskrit terms and
titles seen in the document, the culture
and society of Manila Bay was that of
a Hindu-Old Malay amalgamation,
similar to the cultures of Java,
Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra at
the time.

15.  There are no other significant documents
from this period of pre-Hispanic
Philippine society and culture until the
Doctrina Christiana of the late 16th
century, written at the start of the
Spanish period in both native Baybayin
script and Spanish. Other artifacts with
Kawi script and baybayin were found,
such as an Ivory seal from Butuan dated
to the early 11th century[31] and the
Calatagan pot with baybayin inscription,
dated to the 13th century.

16.  In the 14th cent. Arab traders from
Malay and Borneo introduced Islam
into the southern islands and
extended their influence as far north
as Luzon.

17.  In 1380, Muslim Arabs arrived at the
Sulu Archipelago and established
settlements which became mini-states
ruled by a Datu. They introduced Islam in
the southern parts of the archipelago
including some parts of Luzon and were
under the control of the Muslim sultans
of Borneo. They had a significant
influence over the region for a couple of
hundreds years. The Malay Muslims
remained dominant in these parts until
the 16th century.

18. Socio-Political Organization
 The social and political organization of
the population, in the widely scattered
islands, evolved into a generally
common pattern. Only the permanent-
field rice farmers of northern Luzon
had any concept of territoriality.

19.  The basic unit of settlement was the
barangay, originally a kinship group headed
by a datu (chief). Within the barangay, the
broad social divisions consisted of the
maharlika (nobility|nobles), including the datu;
timawa (Freeman (Colonial)|freemen); and a
group described before the Spanish period as
dependents. Dependents included several
categories with differing status: landless
agricultural workers; those who had lost
freeman status because of indebtedness or
punishment for crime; and alipin (slaves),
most of whom appear to have been war
captives.

21.  The Kingdom of Tondo
◦ Since at least the year 900, the
thalassocracy centered in Manila Bay
flourished via an active trade with
Chinese, Japanese, Malays, and various
other peoples in East Asia. Tondo thrived
as the capital and the seat of power of this
ancient kingdom, which was led by kings
under the title "Lakan" and ruled a large
part of what is now known as Luzon from
or possibly before 900 AD to 1571.

22. ◦ During its existence, it grew to become
one of the most prominent and wealthy
kingdom states in pre-colonial Philippines
due to heavy trade and connections with
several neighboring nations such as
China and Japan. In 900 AD, the lord-
minister Jayadewa presented a document
of debt forgiveness to Lady Angkatan and
her brother Bukah, the children of
Namwaran. This is described in the
Philippine's oldest known document, the
Laguna Copperplate Inscription.

24.  The Rajahnate of Butuan
◦ By year 1011 Rajah Sri Bata Shaja, the
monarch of the Indianized Rajahnate of
Butuan, a maritime-state famous for its
goldwork sent a trade envoy under
ambassador Likan-shieh to the Chinese
Imperial Court demanding equal
diplomatic status with other states.

25.  The Rajahnate of Cebu
◦ The Rajahnate of Cebu was a classical
Philippine state which used to exist on
Cebu island prior to the arrival of the
Spanish. It was founded by Sri Lumay
otherwise known as Rajamuda Lumaya, a
minor prince of the Chola dynasty which
happened to occupy Sumatra.

26. ◦ He was sent by the maharajah to
establish a base for expeditionary forces
to subdue the local kingdoms but he
rebelled and established his own
independent Rajahnate instead. This
rajahnate warred against the 'magalos'
(Slave traders) of Maguindanao and had
an alliance with the Butuan Rajahnate
before it was weakened by the
insurrection of Datu (Lord) Lapulapu.

27.  The Confederation of Madyaas
◦ During the 11th century several exiled
datus of the collapsing empire of Srivijaya
led by Datu Puti led a mass migration to
the central islands of the Philippines,
fleeing from Rajah Makatunao of the
island of Borneo.

28.  Upon reaching the island of Panay and
purchasing the island from Negrito
chieftain Marikudo, they established a
confederation of polities and named it
the Confederation of Madyaas centered
in Aklan and they settled the surrounding
islands of the Visayas. This
confederation reached its peak under
Datu Padojinog. During his reign the
confederations' hegemony extended
over most of the islands of Visayas. Its
people consistently made piratical
attacks against Chinese imperial
shipping.

29.  The Country of Mai
◦ Around 1225, the Country of Mai, a
Sinified pre-Hispanic Philippine island-
state centered in Mindoro, flourished as
an entrepot, attracting traders & shipping
from the Kingdom of Ryukyu to the
Yamato Empire of Japan.

30. ◦ Chao Jukua, a customs inspector in
Fukien province, China wrote the Zhufan
Zhi ("Description of the Barbarous
Peoples"), which described trade with this
pre-colonial Philippine state.

31.  The Sultanate of Sulu
◦ In 1380, Karim ul' Makdum and Shari'ful
Hashem Syed Abu Bakr, an Arab trader
born in Johore, arrived in Sulu from
Malacca and established the Sultanate of
Sulu. This sultanate eventually gained
great wealth due to its manufacture of fine
pearls.

33.  The Sultanate of Maguindanao
◦ At the end of the 15th century, Shariff
Mohammed Kabungsuwan of Johor
introduced Islam in the island of
Mindanao and he subsequently married
Paramisuli, an Iranun Princess from
Mindanao, and established the Sultanate
of Maguindanao. By the 16th century,
Islam had spread to other parts of the
Visayas and Luzon.