Models of Migration To The Philippines - Beyer's Wave Migration Theory

Beyer's Wave Migration Theory

The most widely known theory of the prehistoric peopling of the Philippines is that of H. Otley Beyer, founder of the Anthropology Department of the University of the Philippines. Heading that department for 40 years, Professor Beyer became the unquestioned expert on Philippine prehistory, exerting early leadership in the field and influencing the first generation of Filipino historians and anthropologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, geologists, and students the world over. According to Dr. Beyer, the ancestors of the Filipinos came in different "waves of migration", as follows:

1. "Dawn Man", a cave-man type who was similar to Java man, Peking Man, and other Asian Homo erectus of 250,000 years ago.
2. The aboriginal pygmy group, the Negritos, who arrived between 25,000 and 30,000 years ago via land bridges.
3. The seafaring tool-using Indonesian group who arrived about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago and were the first immigrants to reach the Philippines by sea.
4. The seafaring, more civilized Malays who brought the Iron age culture and were the real colonizers and dominant cultural group in the pre-Hispanic Philippines.

Unfortunately, there is no definite evidence, archaeological or historical, to support this "migration theory". On the contrary, there are sufficient reasons for doubting it, including the following:

1. Beyer used the 19th century scientific methods of progressive evolution and migratory diffusion as the basis for his hypothesis. These methods have now been proven to be too simple and unreliable to explain the prehistoric peopling of the Philippines.
2. The empirical archaeological data for the theory was based on surface finds and mere conjecture, with much imagination and unproven data included.
3. Later findings contradicted the migration theory and the existence of the "Dawn Man" postulated by Beyer.
4. Undue credit is given to Malays as the original settlers of the lowland regions and the dominant cultural transmitter.