blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

The July 2010 cover of the National Geographic has the skull of a female Ardipithecus ramidus which is the oldest known hominid skeleton. For those who aren't familiar about the taxonomy and systematics of humans, Hominids are the great apes who belong to the family Hominidae. These include humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orang utans. The family is further subdivided into Ponginae which contains the Orang utan and the Homininae which contains the chimps, bonobos, gorillas and humans. Gibbons belong to another ape family, the Hylobatidae. Ardipithecus ramidus "Ardi" is the oldest known human ancestor with a fairly complete skeleton that has survived to the present. Estimated at 4.4 MY, the skeleton was unearthed in the Middle Awash in Ethiopia. Before the oldest fossil skeleton was the famous Lucy ( Australopithecus afarensis ) discovered by Donald Johansen in the Awash region of Ethiopia in 1974 and is estimated to have lived 3.2 MYA. The skeleton was nick...

Last week I gave a lecture at the Archaeological Studies Program (ASP) in UP's Palma Hall basement. My lecture was on ecological history. The ASP is housed in a basement and archaeologists partitioned the basement into two. A crowded libraryis on the upper section and the archaeology lab on the lower section. With its throng of students and the ambiance of the lab, it was as if it were a scence from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, except no one wore fedoras. Contrary to popular belief, the ASP is not with the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy (CSSP) but is a separate degree granting unit. Victor Paz is the director of the ASP. A Cambridge educated archaelogist, he specializes in past environments. The major research done is on archaeological sites in Palawan, where they documented fossil remains of tigers. Also in northern Luzon, research has focused on definitely establishing the presence of Homo erectus there. When I was there Vic was being interviewed by a student...

The third Sunday of June is Father's Day. Other countries have their own Father's Day. Wikipedia gives the calendar here . Well it seems that we have stereotyped what to give dear old dad on his day. Why do we have to run to the nearest hardware store every June to buy an electric drill? In Germany, dad gets all the beer he wants! But that is just icing on what really dad deserves. It is easy to father but extremely hard to be a father. Fathering is both physical and spiritual. While dad may not need you to show affection for him, he needs your love and prayers. Prayer is what makes a father go along the way with you. Sometimes the fact that you are a father dawns on a man in an unexpected way, like what happened to Indiana Jones in the last adventure. But whether you know you will be a dad, or one day you realize that you are a dad, everything changes. I extend my Father's day greetings to all fathers, biological ones, foster ones, step ones and of course the Reverend Fath...

The University of the Philippines Archaeological Studies Program (ASP) recently announced that scientists working on the Palawan Island Palaeohistoric Project have unearthed the fossil remains of tigers in Ille Cave in the Dewil Valley, El Nido, Palawan. This is an important discovery on the prehistory and evolution of Philippine biota. The Philippines has long been known known by biogeographers as a fauna that lacks major representatives of Asian animals. While we have a unique fauna, most of these are characteristic of oceanic islands. We have a high biodiversity of rats, since they rapidly evolved in the Philippines with the lack large predators. The largest land carnivore in the Philippines is the reticulated python while the largest aerial predator is the Philippine eagle. That was before this tiger discovery. Even then palaeontologists have long known that large herbivores such as elephants roamed the larger Philippine islands. Their fossils are often found and are on display at...