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Stephen Acabado University of Hawaii Honolulu, Hawaii Landscapes and Self-Organizing Systems: Archaeology of the Ifugao Rice Terraces, Northern Luzon, Philippines Abstract:

This proposed research investigates the relationship between irrigation and social organization in traditional Ifugao society in the northern Philippines highlands. Recent anthropological studies have identified the limitations of “top-down” approaches to interpreting ancient and contemporary systems of irrigation. Ethnographically-documented societies throughout the world, such as Southeast Asia and the Andes confirm that complex irrigation systems and intensified agriculture developed in the absence of centralized political control.

My study seeks to elaborate on these findings by documenting the geographic and environmental parameters of traditional Ifugao terrace irrigation, since so much research on ancient agriculture systems has focused on lowland tropical settings. To investigate the history and growth of the highland Ifugao system I will: 1) use GIS technology to identify the topographic locations that were best suited for settlement and terrace construction, 2) conduct archaeological excavations and soil augering to determine the age of individual settlements and terraces, and 3) interview Ifugao farmers to determine how labor is deployed to construct and maintain their irrigation terraces. Ifugao social organization has changed dramatically since the emergence of Filipino nationhood at the inception of the 20th century. The sustainability of Ifugao rice production in spite of this change is a testament to the effectiveness of self-organizing systems of irrigation agriculture.

This proposed research will also help train the next generation of archaeologists specializing in Southeast Asian archaeology by including advanced Philippine archaeology and history graduate students in the study; it will also foster cooperation among specialists in East Asia, the United States, and Canada because of the interdisciplinary and global theme that this research addresses; furthermore, this investigation will promote public appreciation of recent discoveries and research by highlighting the importance of cultural heritage and sustainable agricultural practices.

My proposed research will focus on archaeological remains that are located in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Ifugao, Central Cordillera, Philippines. There has been a dearth of archaeological studies in the region for the past three decades. Moreover, ancient terraces in the area are rapidly deteriorating because of their ongoing use and maintenance by contemporary Ifugao farmers whose livelihood depends on agriculture. It is imperative that work be done before it is too late. This study will generate archaeological findings that are directly relevant to understanding and preserving Ifugao irrigation technology and heritage, and expands our anthropological knowledge of water management in the non-industrial world.

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Table of Contents

Abstract - - - - - - - - 1

I. Introduction - - - - - - - - 3

II. Background to the Study - - - - - - 4 III. Research Area - - - - - - - 6 A. The Environment - - - - - - 6 B. The Ifugao - - - - - - - 7 IV. Research Strategy - - - - - - - 8 V. Findings from Pilot Research - - - - - - 9 VI. Methodology and Research Schedule - - - - - 10 VII. Significance - - - - - - - - 12 References Cited - - - - - - - - 15

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Figure 1. Location map of Ifugao Province, Northern Philippines (inset: Rice terraces in the Municipality of Banaue, Ifugao Province

I. Research Problems and Objectives

This proposed research seeks to promote better understanding of East Asian archaeology by applying a landscape approach (sensu Crumley 1995) to investigate relationships between agricultural production and social organization among the Ifugao (northern Philippines). Studies of agricultural intensification and emergent complexity/state formation in South East Asia, has focused mainly on lowland populations, highland phenomena has largely been overlooked. My proposed study seeks to understand a highland population that practices intensified agriculture through terracing, but lacks the social complexity often associated with agricultural intensification.

I will study the Ifugao landscape to examine the nature of social relationships within and among multiple watersheds. The communities that constructed these fields are organized into bilateral descent groups (Drucker 1977) that are integrated into a non-centralized heterarchy (Crumley 2001). The Ifugao installed their remarkable agricultural terraces at least three hundred

years ago. To this day, community networks of kin and non-kin are responsible for their ongoing maintenance (Eder 1982; Dulawan 2001).

Understanding the organizational requirements of irrigation agriculture has long been a focus of the anthropological archaeology of “middle-range” societies. One reason lies in the long-held archaeological assumption that large-scale agricultural systems are generally associated with centralized forms of political organization. Another lies in the difficulty of classifying such systems within a neoevolutionary framework.

Traditional Ifugao society exemplifies the limitations of neoevolutionary models of sociopolitical organization (Service 1962; Fried 1975). Ifugao society is ranked and land tenure is based on this hierarchical arrangement. Moreover, ownership of cultivable lands signifies membership in the highest social grouping: the kadangyan. Irrigation management, timing of harvesting and planting, and ritual aspects of agricultural production also falls under the influence of the kadangyan. However, the Ifugao society does not neatly fall into

a “tribal,” a “chiefdom,” or a “state” category. Ifugao society has aspects that are said to be characteristics of all of these kinds of political organization. Thus, I

follow Feinman and Nietzel (1984: 45) and Upham (1987: 349) by referring to such populations as “middle-range” societies. While this term is not without its own limitations, it offers an alternative to neoevolutionary theory.

In the Philippines, most studies of emergent complexity have concentrated on elites in lowlands populations that engaged in long-distance trade (Junker 1994; 1998; 1999). Although

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the highland Ifugao also exhibit evidence of emergent complexity they have largely been ignored by archaeologists and historians.

Archaeologists routinely borrow models from political anthropology that emphasize the managerial requirements of irrigation systems (e.g., Wittfogel 1955, 1957; Steward 1955; Kolata 1983; Erickson 1993, Lansing 1991, 1993; Scarborough 2003). Particular attention has been devoted to the analysis of water management and emergent complexity (Doolittle 1990; Erickson 1993; Hunt 1988; Hunt and Hunt 1974; Kolata 1983, 1986, 1991; Ortloff et al. 1982; Schoenfelder 2000; Scarborough et al. 2000). The precise role of water management remains unresolved, and more work is needed on the relationship between water management systems and political organization.

I seek to account for the sustainability of Ifugao irrigated-terrace farming by utilizing the concept of self-organizing systems (Kaufmann 1993; Corcoran 1992). My research documents the growth of a self-organizing system by examining the historical development of at least one major terrace system. In using a landscape approach, I will examine historical, ecological, and ethnographic dimensions of Ifugao agriculture. This analysis of the Ifugao landscape will document the dynamic and recursive linkages between the Ifugao and their environment. My study also promises to shed light on the apparent disconnect between water management and sociopolitical organization. In doing so, this offers an opportunity to ascertain factors that underlie the sustainability of Ifugao agriculture, which in turn highlights the imperative of preserving this traditional technology.

This investigation expands our understanding of Asian archaeology and prehistory by incorporating highland emergent complexity and agricultural intensification in the growing Asian archaeology literature (i.e. Lansing 1991, 1993; Scarborough 1999; Schoenfelder et al. 2000). This proposed research will also train future specialists (including myself) in the study of South East Asian archeology. Furthermore, this promotes understanding of cultural heritage through the appreciation of the general public of recent discoveries.

This historical-ecological analysis of Ifugao terrace systems will be conducted according to four stages of research: 1) The application of GIS technology to correlate human settlement and terrace expansion; 2) The collection of charcoal specimens by soil augering and archaeological excavation [to determine the ages of sites and their construction sequence]; 3) The execution of ethnographic interviews with Ifugao farmers to document their perspective on the construction and maintenance of their fields; and 4) The analysis, synthesis, and interpretation of data in the laboratory.

II. Background to the Study Intensification and Water Management Theory

The relationship between irrigation agriculture and social organization is a perennial topic of anthropological debate. One reason lies in the impression that intensified agricultural systems require centralized management and demographic demand (Wittfogel 1955, 1957; Steward 1955; Boserup 1965, 1981, 1990); another relates to the destructive environmental signatures of irrigated farming (Redman 1999; Denevan 1992, 2001; Erickson 2006a).

Boserup’s (1965, 1981, 1990) and Wittfogel’s (1955, 1957) theories of agricultural change and political transformation provided archaeologists with empirical models that attempted to explain subsistence and organizational change over time. Many archaeologists have

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been attracted to Boserup’s theoretical framework because it complements their efforts to examine sociopolitical development according to various neoevolutionary schemes (Morrison 1994: 136). Boserup’s model provided a useful context for incorporating fragmentary archaeological evidence obtained from different periods and diverse regions into a broader framework of interpretation. Boserup’s model is, however, relatively deterministic and unilinear in that it lacks historical proof and it conflates a variety of agricultural strategies (Morrison 1996: 583-584).

Similarly, Wittfogel argued that large-scale hydraulic agriculture was (by necessity) orchestrated by a centralized administrative apparatus to mobilize and coordinate labor for irrigation, to engage in hydraulic engineering, and to provide the capital. Fifty years ago, anthropologists conceptualized this as a simple issue of water management and elite control. More recently, anthropology has offered a more nuanced view in which intensification is a process (and water management is one component). Ethnographic (i.e. Hunt and Hunt 1974, 1976; Hunt 1988; Geertz 1980, Netting 1974) and archaeological (Glick 1970; Doolittle 1990; Downing and Gibson 1974) applications of Wittfogel’s model have revealed some of its limitations and shortcomings. These studies have confirmed that many communities have traditional means of dispute resolution and cooperation that permit large-scale irrigation outside of a highly centralized state apparatus.

Glick showed that irrigation communities in medieval Spain operated without the oversight of a centralized political organization. Work on Balinese rice terrace systems (e.g. Lansing 1991, 1993; Schoenfelder 2000; Scarborough et al. 2000) illustrates another example of a complex hydraulic system that operates in the absence of a centralized administrative body. Instead, the Bali system is coordinated by socially-equivalent members of different watersheds or subak (Lansing 1991: 37-49; cf. Hauser-Schäublin 2003). Mabry (1996: 1-7) also pointed out that local irrigation systems are often quite flexible, even in the face of significant and rapidly changing social and environmental conditions. For that and other reasons, complex irrigation systems do not necessarily require centralized modes of political control.

Historical ecology provides another way in looking at intensification and social change. It views landscapes as products of human decisions, creativity, technology, and cultural institutions (Balée 1998, Denevan 2001, Erickson 2000). Landscapes are conceptualized through historical and cultural traditions. In this study, the Ifugao landscape is a product of social institutions, as such, the modification of the environment is not an adaptation, rather applying a suite of information passed down from earlier generations (Erickson 2003: 456).

New theoretical developments in the so-called “complexity” sciences suggest that many “systems” in nature are self-organizing. This more recent theoretical approach holds much promise for explaining the organization of human activities, such as irrigation agriculture. Theories of self-organization consider self-ordering mechanisms of complex systems and at order-oriented behavior of opportunistic organisms, differentiating such order from that seen, for example, in snowflakes (Kauffman 1995: 8). In contrast to perspectives that emphasize the mechanism of natural selection, order in nature is not at all random or accidental. The potential of this approach to human societies rests on the finding that the adaptive success of self-organizing systems may be tied, in part, to cognitive and ecological liminality (Ellen 1982) that enables and sustains flexible power relations (Crumley 1995: 3) and resiliency (Redman 2005).

The view that human practices are reproduced through cognitive and motivating structures is useful for the analysis of Ifugao landscape and social dynamics. This is evident in Lansing’s (1991, 1993, 1995) explanation of the emergence of Bali’s yield-enhancing,

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Figure 2. Drainage system in North Central Ifugao in relation to rice terraces and swidden fields (from Acabado 2003)

autonomous systems of agriculture-managing water temples. This view hypothesizes that optimization systems, such as the Bali case, may emerge in the absence of centralized control or a high degree of socio-political stratification. When elites do emerge and try co-option, local mechanisms of resistance forestall subjugation, even as productivity in a system is elevated.

Models of self-organization offer a promising approach for examining human-environmental interaction. Although Ifugao villages are politically autonomous, they practice a remarkable level of agricultural intensification across multiple watersheds that require inter-community cooperation. The interconnection between the environment, swidden fields, rice terraces, water management, and social organization provides a valuable opportunity to examine a self-organizing system in a contemporary setting that also has ancient antecedents.

This research resonates with Erickson’s historical ecological studies in the Andes and the Amazon (1993, 2003, 2006a, 2006b) and Lansing’s work among the Balinese (1993). The bottom-up approach by Erickson and the methodology used by Lansing on the Balinese water management provide a means to examine Ifugao landscape and social organization. III. Research Area A. The Environment Central Cordillera Highlands in Northern Philippines is dominated by terraced rice fields of the Ifugao. It lies on the central part of the Cordillera mountain range in the northern Philippines. It is bounded by the Mountain Province on the north, by the Magat River on the east, the province of Nueva Vizcaya on the south, by Benguet province in the west. It has a total area of 2,525 km2 distributed over eleven administrative municipalities: Kiangan, Lagawe, Hengyon, Banaue, Mayoyao, Aguinaldo, Alfonso Lista, Lamut, Hungduan, Tinog, and Asipulo. The area lies east of the Cordilleran divide, 17° north of equator. Settlements and human made features in the landscape lie between 1,000 and 1,500 meters above sea level (Conklin 1980:1), with some mountain ridges rise up to 2,500 m above sea level. The annual rainfall exceeds 3,000 mm, sustaining wet-rice agriculture in uneven topography, with landscape modification. Irrigated ponded terraces and interspersed patches of woodlots occupy the gentler slopes often occurring with settlements in the lower portions of valleys. During the period of Conklin’s (1980) study, average population density ranged between 100 and 250 per square kilometer.

Local subsistence activities are directly associated with the dominant features of the area – the rice terraces,

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Figure 3. Profile of an Ifugao terrace system (from Gonzales 2000: 74)

swidden fields, and private forests (called muyong). These features are an important part in the daily lives of Ifugao, who presumably, built them. Their daily lives are influenced by the cosmology, social relations, and ideology that are associated with the activities related to the rice terraces; terrace-building, maintenance, planting and harvesting (Dulawan, 2001; Goda, 2001). The rice terraces are also emblematic of Filipino cultural heritage. As such, the Banaue rice terraces were included in UNESCO’s program for protection in 1995 and were reclassified on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 20011. B. The Ifugao

The Ifugao are one of several minority ethnolinguistic groups in the northern Philippines.

They are well-known throughout the country and the anthropological world because of their extensive rice terraces. At the turn of the 20th century two prominent figures in Philippine anthropology began an intensive investigation of the Ifugao (Barton 1919, 1955; Beyer 1926, 1955). In 1924, Francis Lambrecht focused on documenting traditional Ifugao customs (1929, 1962, and 1967). Although substantial ethnographic materials on the Ifugao have been published dating back to the Spanish era (i.e. Antolín 1970), little archaeological research has been conducted.

The sole archaeological project to date is Maher’s (1973)

effort to estimate the age of the terraces. Although his findings did not place the terraces in a date that was previously believed (at least 2000 years old), it nonetheless dispelled the notions that Ifugao people retreated to the mountains to evade the Spanish (Maher 1973: 55).

Several other scholars have advanced dates for the inception of the Ifugao rice terraces (Table 1), but only one radiocarbon date exists thus far from this region. For at least 300 years, Ifugao communities in the Central Cordillera had intensified agricultural production but their village configurations neither show Boserup’s requirement of population density nor Wittfogel’s political centralization. A neighboring group who also practice terrace rice farming, the Bontoc, provided a radiocarbon date of 450 years BP (Bodner 1986: 310).

1 http://whc.unesco.org/archive/repcom01.htm#sec8

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Author Date Major Points Barton (1919) and Beyer (1955) 2000-3000 YBP Estimated how long it would have

taken to construct the elaborate terrace systems which fill valley after valley of Ifugao country

Keesing (1962) and Dozier (1966) <300 YBP Movements to upper elevation of Cordillera peoples were associated with the Spanish pressure

Lambrecht (1967) <300 YBP Used lexical and linguistic evidence by analyzing Ifugao romantic tales (hudhud); Observed short duration of terrace building and concluded a recent origin of the terraces.

Maher (1973: 52-55) 205 ± 100 YBP 735 ± 105 YBP

Radiocarbon dates from two house platforms

Table 1. Dates proposed for the inception of the Ifugao rice terraces Today, the Ifugao practice a combination of wet-rice terraced farming and swiddening.

This agricultural system is significant in the organization of their society. The elite (kadangyan) own the wet-terraced rice fields, while the swidden fields are cultivated by the nawatwat, or the lowest social grouping (Brosius 1988). Eder (1982) pointed out that the state system degraded the relationship between the kadangyan and the nawatwat. Previously, the kadangyan possessed enormous social influence in their society. They decide on scheduling terrace-building, maintenance, and rituals. With the assimilation of the Ifugao to the wider Philippine lowland society, this social dynamic has since changed.

The changing nature of Ifugao social organization can be observed in the increasing authority and influence of the state in the daily life of the Ifugao. Previously, the Ifugao elite (kadangyan) possessed enough influence to control the use of communal forests (Sajor 1999) as well as terrace expansion and distribution of irrigation channels. Furthermore, Ifugao communities’ access to environmental resources has been limited by state encroachment. However, management of the irrigation system within a terrace system is still largely autonomous (Gonzales 2000: 82-83).

I assume that the increased density of rice terraces, swidden fields, villages, and irrigation systems has complicated water, pest, and waste management in Ifugao society. Lansing’s Balinese study showed that such stress provides a strong incentive for farmers to promote an autonomous, self-organizing network of social groups. In Ifugao, a similar situation arises when downstream fields are dependent upon upstream plots. IV. Research Strategy

This study utilizes GIS technology, augering for soil cores, ethnographic interviews, and laboratory analysis in understanding Ifugao landscape and cultural dynamics. GIS technology will enable me to develop a model that documents the spatial and temporal correlation of villages, swidden fields, and rice pondfields with respect to different environmental attributes (soil, topography, and hydrology). This information will be integrated to infer the growth and development of habitation settlements and agricultural terraces in the region. Once this model has been constructed, I will use it to devise a sampling strategy to gather appropriate charcoal samples via soil coring and sub-surface excavation.

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The GIS database will also enable me to generate estimates of the labor that people invested in terrace construction. Analysis of the GIS database will also be used to assess the potential productivity of various terraces and swidden fields. Meanwhile, soil cores will allow me to: 1) retrodict past climatic conditions, through the analysis of micro-botanical remains (e.g., pollen, phytoliths); 2) determine the depth of agricultural soils; 3) discriminate between soils that reflect pondfield agriculture and dryland agriculture; and 4) monitor the conversion of dryland fields into pondfield systems. These research activities will be supplemented with an analysis of the fluvial stratigraphy that is derived from long-term irrigation.

Excavation units offer an opportunity to recover charcoal from beneath terrace walls. Radiocarbon determinations from these units will help establish initial construction of the terrace system. These radiocarbon age-estimations will provide a chronometric anchor for seriating the growth of the terrace wall system that I will map as part of my fieldwork.

I expect to find artifacts and environmental signatures that will enable this investigation to reconstruct Central Cordillera cultural chronology. Excavations along rice-terrace walls as well on house platforms will allow me to establish much needed reference in archaeological sequence of Central Cordillera, Philippines. In the past four decades, only two archaeological studies have been conducted in this part of the country. Excavations will also help in reconstructing environmental and landscape changes in the area. V. Findings from Pilot Research Academic Feasibility

This research is a logical extension of the work that I began during my MA thesis at the University of Hawai‘i (Acabado 2003). As part of my previous thesis research, I digitized five land use maps for the North Central Cordillera that were published by Harold Conklin (1972). My thesis research supported Conklin’s (1980) observations about the effects of topography on rice terracing and swidden cultivation. There is a statistically significant correlation (p < .05) between degrees of slope and certain kinds of land use, including pondfield agriculture and swidden cultivation. The type and scale of agricultural production (i.e., pondfield and swidden) that is practiced strongly correlates with the sizes of settlements that were occupied. This correlation supports my provisional hypothesis that large watersheds – which could sustain more “intensive” forms of agricultural production – would have attracted relatively large populations of Ifugao in the past. While this hypothesis may seem intuitive, it remains to be confirmed with empirical evidence from the archaeological record of the highland Philippines. VI. Methodology and Research Schedule

My study of Ifugao agriculture and social organization will include four stages of research (Table 2): a GIS-based analyses of the Ifugao landscape; a field survey that involves GPS mapping, augering for soil cores, and excavations; ethnographic interviews; and laboratory and data analysis. The first stage requires digitization of topographic and land use maps as well as satellite and aerial photographs to develop a digital elevation model of the Ifugao region. Information on soil productivity from the Bureau of Soils and Water Management of the Philippines and the Department of Agriculture and rainfall data from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) will be

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included in the GIS database. Estimates of labor and agricultural productivity will be developed for one terrace system using the GIS database and information that I cull from the ethnographic interviews.

Simple regression analyses will be used to examine environmental data in the GIS database. I expect that certain environmental conditions underlie the suitability of areas that were/are optimal for wet rice agriculture and terracing in the highlands of Northern Luzon. Research in Bali (Lansing 1991; Scarborough et al. 2000), for example, demonstrates how water was shared between upstream and downstream populations elsewhere in Southeast Asia. I will apply a similar perspective to investigate the social organization of irrigation among the Ifugao. In this vein, I expect that earliest construction of rice terraces among the Ifugao began near sources of water (rivers, springs) and on areas that had relatively gentle slopes.

Stage two (field survey) of my study will focus on GPS mapping, soil augering, and subsurface excavation, to acquire samples for radiocarbon dating and paleoenvironmental reconstruction (e.g., pollen/phytolith samples). Sites for mapping will be selected after I have constructed the GIS database. In consultation with Ifugao informants, I will select well-preserved sites for soil augering. Following the demonstrated technique applied by Ladefoged et al. (1996, 2003) in Hawai‘i, I will produce detailed maps of terrace walls using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technology. These maps (along with radiocarbon dates) will facilitate my goal of seriating the growth of one particular terrace system.

Agricultural soils have sedimentological characteristics that can be examined to identify past farming activities (Holliday 2004: 329; Sandor 1995). For this reason, soil cores will be gathered under the guidance of Dr. Fernando Siringan (National Institute of Geological Sciences, University of the Philippines). Soil augering and terrace wall excavations will be undertaken during the “off season” (i.e., late July to late November) of the Ifugao agricultural calendar (Conklin 1980: 13-37). This phase marks the time when farmers often repair damaged walls. Scheduling my research during this period ensures that my fieldwork will not disrupt major agricultural activities, such as the preparation of fields and planting of rice.

The materials that I accumulate during the fieldwork will be shipped to the Archaeology Labs of the University of Hawaii for processing, analysis, and curation. Radiocarbon samples from soil cores will be sent to the University of Arizona AMS Laboratory for analysis, and the microbotanical samples will be sent to Paleoresearch Inc. in Golden, Colorado.

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Date Stage Activity (03/2007-04/2007)

1 GIS-based analysis of the Ifugao landscape

1. Digitize and analyze topographic maps as well as develop land use classification and digital elevation model from aerial and satellite photographs of North Central Cordillera. 2. Develop estimates of soil productivity from data culled from the GIS-database (above) and data from the Bureau of Soils and Water Management, the Department of Agriculture and precipitation data from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA). 3. Develop productivity estimates vis-à-vis labor requirement for a specific terrace system through the GIS-database 4. Develop construction sequence of terrace systems. I hypothesize that the sequence of construction of the rice terraces in Ifugao starts from areas near sources of water (rivers, springs) and on relatively gentler slopes.

2 Survey: GPS mapping, and interviews

1. Interview farmers (and terrace builders) about the optimum areas for terracing. 2. Take GPS points from sites identified by informants as the oldest terrace systems and systems that exhibit optimal features for agricultural production. 3. Map terrace systems (terrace walls) using GPS.

05/2007-08/2007

3 Survey: augering for soil cores and excavations

A terrace system identified by GIS and local informants as the oldest will be chosen for augering and excavation 1. Six core samples will be obtained from the chosen terrace system: Two core samples from terraces nearest to water channels, farthest from them, and midway between the two points will be gathered. These soil core samples will be taken from a single agricultural district (himpuntonagan) that the GIS-model determined to be the oldest. 2. Six 1m x 1m excavations along the terrace walls adjacent to the sites cored will be conducted to provide context to radiocarbon samples obtained from the augered soil cores. They will also provide cultural sequences.

08/2007-12/2007

4 Data analysis and write up

Table 2. Research activities and schedule. VII. Significance Intellectual Merits This research examines anthropological issues that include relationship between agricultural and irrigation systems with emergent complexity; pathways to intensification; and organizational entailments of irrigation systems. Such work informs on theoretical foundations of studies of agricultural systems and social organization by applying the model of self-organizing systems, providing empirical data to similar studies in island Southeast Asia (Lansing 1991, 1993; Scarborough 1999; Schoenfelder et al. 2000) and elsewhere (Glick 1970, 1996; Erickson 1993), and provides an historical ecological approach in the study of emergent complexity. Most importantly, this research looks at the material manifestations of the link between agricultural systems and emergent complexity. My proposed research also offers a much needed reference point in archaeological studies of the northern Philippine highlands. The GIS modeling, as well as radiocarbon dates, will provide a baseline for further studies in other areas of the Philippine Cordillera. This aspect is

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significant because only two archaeological investigations have been done in the Cordillera region in nearly four decades (see Maher 1973, 1978, 1985; Bodner 1986 [for Bontoc]) and an almost complete absence of archaeological chronology in the area remains. This study will also train young generation of Filipino archaeologists. The dearth of professionally-trained local archaeologists has hampered the development of the anthropological archaeology research in the Philippines. This research provides a venue for local graduate students from the University of the Philippines to apply university training to field-based research setting. I also plan to carry-out weekly lectures on heritage management in the field (with the community), and graduate students will also actively participate in this aspect. Moreover, this research and training facilitates the completion of my doctorate. I am committed to return to the Philippines to an academic position upon receiving a Ph.D. Broader Impacts

The implications of my research to the area being studied are profound. As mentioned in previous sections, the Ifugao rice terraces are rapidly deteriorating and the Ifugao people are losing both their tangible and intangible heritage to changes brought about by economic and political transformations. The rice terraces are examples of landesque capital (Brookfield 1984: 36; Blaikie and Brookfield 1987: 9) and the assimilation of Ifugao social organization to that of the state together with the low status given to farmers and the rapid disappearance of traditional knowledge, could further spell degradation of the terraces. One of the overarching goals of this study is to contribute to heritage conservation programs in Ifugao, in both tangible and intangible heritage. I aim to contribute to the preservation of the rice terraces in two ways. First, this research will open avenues for educating local people (and broader Filipino society) on the importance of preserving our cultural heritage. Community training and lectures to high school and elementary students on the importance of heritage conservation and management as well as general anthropology will be carried out during the field season. Secondly, the data that I will gather from this research will be freely available for any agency or individual that is working on developing a preservation/conservation program on the rice terraces and Ifugao culture.

The results of this investigation will be made available to various publics through the SITMo, the provincial government of Ifugao, the University of the Philippines, and the National Museum (Philippines). These institutions will be provided with copies of publications relating to the study. I am also willing to present lectures that will highlight archaeological discoveries for the public. As an example of these philosophical commitments, I recently curated an exhibit of the importance of water in Khmer culture at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila (Acabado 2006). I believe that educating (through lectures and exhibits) various publics would not only further Asian archaeology, it would also provide an avenue for emphasizing the importance of conserving our heritage.

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