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The Tabon Caves, dubbed as the ''Philippines' Cradle of Civilization,'' are a set of caves located on Lipuun Point, north of Quezon municipality, in the south western part of the province of Palawan on Palawan Island, in the Philippines. The caves are named after the Tabon scrubfowl. It is bordered on the south by the town proper of Quezon, Bgy. Panitian on the west, and the South China Sea on the north and east. Out of 215 known caves, 29 have been explored and seven of these are open to the public. The seven include Tabon, Diwata, Igang and Liyang Caves. One of the oldest human bones found in the Philippines, the Tabon Man, was found here in 1962. Other excavated, unexamined remains are stored onsite. The complex is managed by the National Museum〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Tabon Caves: Site of an important Philippine archaeological discovery )〕 and was declared as a National Cultural Treasure by the same institution in February 2011.〔〔 == Archaeological discoveries == The caves were researched by Dr. Robert B. Fox and a team from the National Museum of the Philippines in 1962. The greatest find of was the skull cap of the Tabon Man. It is believed to be approximately 22,000-24,000 years old.〔〔 The team found over 1,500 burial jars. One jar in particular, the Manunggul Jar, is considered to be a National Cultural Treasure. Other finds included earthenware, jade ornaments and jewelry, many stone tools, animal bones, and human fossils dating back to 47,000 years ago, earliest human remains found in the Philippines. The archaeological finds indicate habitation from 50,000 to 700 years ago. The limestone formations in the reservation date back 25 million years to the Lower Middle Miocene Period. The Lipuun Point Reservation, covering a 138-hectare island connected to the Palawan mainland by a mangrove forest, was declared a Site Museum Reservation in April 1972 and was made a priority site for tourism development in 1991 for its natural and cultural heritage. In recent years, verification of facts in addition to further analysis of previously collected samples has allowed for a greater understanding of the site as a whole. Radioisotope dating techniques have been able to show a period of near continuous habitation from 30,000-9,000 years ago. Human remains as well as rock flakes, hammers, and other stone tools indicate the cave may have been used as a workshop. The bone fragments found in the caves have been suggested to have been from the late Pleistocene to early Holocene periods.〔 Previous excavations of the site have also revealed evidence of a diet including pig and deer, which is extinct in the Philippines today. While little new data is available because of the cave's location and safety concerns, they are slowly being excavated and the old data is being reexamined. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tabon Caves」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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