25,000 B.C. Ancient Negroid people immigrate to the Philippines over a land bridge then still connecting the archipelago with the Asian mainland. They are food gatherers and hunters, and the forefathers of today’s Negritos. These people use bows and arrows and stone made implements. They live in caves.
5,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C. The “New Stone Age”. Sea faring Malays from what is today Indonesia come to the archipelago. These new settlers bring with them polished stone tools, boat building, bark and animal skin cloth making, pottery, rice planting, the process of cooking food in bamboo tubes, the techniques of making fire by rubbing two sticks together. The Negritos begin to move out of caves and settle in a scattered manner along the coasts and rivers.
3,000 B.C. to 1,000 B.C. A second wave of Malay immigrants arrives in the Philippines by sea. Each of their ships accommodated one small clan. Such a ship load of people was called a barangay, a term which was revived by Marcos to describe an organized neighborhood of more than 1000 people. The immigrants in the second wave were ancestors of today’s Ifugao, Bontoc, Mangyans, and other primitive tribes. They introduced the animist religion and jar burial in The Country . Earliest metal tools of the period are made of copper, bronze, iron and gold.
200 B.C. More civilized Malays in large numbers migrate to the Philippines. They are the racial stock of the majority of today’s Philippine populace.
200 B.C. to 1000 A.D. In the Iron Age beginns artistry in the Philippines in all aspects of life and work. Earrings, beads, pendants and bangles made of clay, stone and shells are developed. Body tattooing is used as well as filing and blackening teeth which were then wrapped with gold foil or studded with gold fillings.
1,000 A.D. to 1,200 A.D. In the Porcelain Age trading begins extensively with Arabia, India, Annan, China and later with the Europeans. Porcelains from different Chinese dynasties are imported.
1200 to 1300. Migrants from Borneo spread into the Southern Philippines.
1300 to 1400. The Hindu empire of Majapahit on Java gains influence over parts of the islands.
1380. Islam reaches the Southern Philippines via Borneo. In islamic areas, slavery is in the following years widely replacing head-hunting. Would be head-hunting victims become slaves that are bartered to Chinese traders. A new social order is started made up of freemen, commoners, slaves and bonded servants, all under the leadership of a datu.
1450. The Muslim sultanate of Jolo is established on the islands between Borneo and Mindanao.
1475. The Muslim sultanate of Maguindanao is founded on Mindanao. Islam spreads throughout the archipelago and even reaches central Luzon.