Archeological Finds in Lobo, Batangas: What the 2008 Survey Revealed

For much of the twentieth century, archaeological research in Batangas concentrated on the southwestern part of the province, particularly Calatagan. The eastern portion received considerably less attention until the University of the Philippines Archaeological Studies Program conducted a survey of southeastern Batangas in April and May 2008, covering the municipalities of San Juan, Lobo, Taysan, and Padre Garcia. In Lobo, the researchers visited ten barangays and recorded several potential archaeological sites, some of which contained pottery, foreign ceramics, and reported human burials¹.

The survey was not a large-scale excavation. Its initial objectives were to locate potential archaeological sites through surface inspection and interviews with local residents, establish a chronological sequence based on archaeological materials, and identify places that should be investigated through future excavation. The researchers recorded site coordinates, elevation, topography, surface finds, informants, and other observations, while artifacts that they actually recovered were accessioned through specimen inventory records².

One of the most important sites was the Masaguitsit Elementary School site. According to people interviewed by the archaeologists, workers had encountered earthenware vessels together with human bones more than a metre below the surface when the school’s covered court was constructed. The vessels had subsequently been included in an exhibit, but could no longer be located when the archaeological team visited the site. The researchers themselves observed numerous pottery sherds around the court but did not collect them, and concluded that much of the site might still have remained undisturbed because the construction had affected only a limited portion of the area³.

The Sabas Anyayahan Site in Purok Pagkakaisa, Barangay Banalo, produced physical evidence observed directly by the archaeological team. Local residents reported that jars, water jars, and pots had previously been found in the property, while the researchers observed what appeared to be old terracing and recovered a decorated earthenware vessel rim. The team classified the site as a settlement site and recommended test excavation of the terraces to determine whether additional archaeological material survived below the surface⁴.

In Fabrica, the Calumpang Site likewise produced indications of earlier occupation. Residents reported the recovery of pots, jars, and plates, while the researchers observed foreign ceramic sherds and broken pottery and recovered a fragment of an earthenware cover decorated with incised lines. At the Oscar Araja Site, also in Fabrica, the evidence came from a much less controlled excavation. When the archaeologists arrived, a ten-metre-deep pit was being dug behind a house in the belief that gold might be found deeper underground; the person supervising the digging reported that a tapayan had been encountered at approximately five metres. The researchers photographed and documented part of its rim, including a portion bearing an inscription⁵.

The reports from Sitio Balugbug in Sawang were particularly significant because they involved alleged burials. Local residents recalled digging activities there between 1965 and 1967 during which pots containing shells were reportedly found, and porcelain or “lila” sherds were said to have been visible in the area. One informant remembered a jar containing a small skull at about a metre below the surface, while another recalled a skeleton buried with a pot. The archaeologists did observe small pottery fragments at the site, but the human remains and burial associations described to them were based on local testimony rather than on a controlled excavation undertaken by the 2008 team⁶.

A related report came from the Mercy Reynolds Site, also in Balugbug. Residents told the archaeologists that human bones and a pot containing shells had been found in the area; other testimony referred to jars and skeletons discovered about 1.5 metres below ground when a house was constructed in 2006. The bones had been reburied, and the archaeologists recorded these accounts as part of their site survey. Again, the distinction is important: these were reported discoveries preserved through oral testimony, not burials scientifically excavated and documented by the 2008 archaeological team⁷.

AI-depiction of the archeological dig in Lobo, Batangas.

The distinction between locally reported objects and systematically excavated artifacts becomes important when interpreting the evidence. The National Museum of the Philippines explains that earthenware vessels occur in both habitation and burial contexts, with vessels in burial sites often functioning as ritual vessels or containers for offerings to the dead. The museum also notes that foreign materials, including stoneware and porcelain, occur widely in Philippine archaeological burial contexts, particularly in later periods⁸.

This broader archaeological evidence is relevant to the foreign ceramics reported in Lobo, but it does not permit us to make a stronger claim than the evidence allows. The presence of foreign ceramics establishes that such objects reached the archaeological record of Lobo; by itself, it does not establish the identity of their owners, the exact route by which the objects arrived, or the existence of a particular foreign community in the municipality. Research on the better-excavated fifteenth- and sixteenth-century cemeteries of Calatagan likewise shows that imported ceramics were involved in complex local mortuary practices rather than simply functioning as straightforward markers of foreign presence or prestige⁹.

The dating of the Lobo sites is also more varied than a single “ancient Lobo” date might suggest. The archaeologists identified the earliest period represented in the materials they collected from the southeastern Batangas survey as the Late Metal Age, approximately AD 100–400. They specifically recorded Metal Age material from the Sabas Anyayahan Site in Lobo, while Sitio Balugbug in Sawang was assigned material dating to the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries; the Calumpang and Oscar Araja sites in Fabrica were among the locations whose materials were assigned to the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries¹⁰.

This chronology is consistent with the researchers’ conclusion that some of the archaeological sites in southeastern Batangas were multiphase rather than belonging to a single period. Their analysis placed the early sites along the coast of southeastern Batangas, specifically in San Juan and Lobo, while their discussion of the material culture showed that the region continued to produce archaeological evidence from much later periods. The National Museum’s own archaeological collections likewise demonstrate that Philippine earthenware traditions and burial practices continued from the Metal Age into the Protohistoric Period, including the fourteenth- to sixteenth-century material known from Calatagan¹¹.

What, then, can the Lobo evidence actually tell us? First, it demonstrates that the municipality contains multiple archaeological sites associated with both settlement and burial activity. Second, it establishes the presence of locally made earthenware and foreign ceramic material at several locations. Third, the chronology indicates that the archaeological record of Lobo is not confined to a single period but includes evidence assigned to the Late Metal Age, the late fifteenth to early sixteenth centuries, and much later historic periods¹².

The 2008 survey also altered the researchers’ understanding of where archaeological sites might be found in Lobo. They had initially concentrated on lowland coastal areas, but the survey revealed two sites on high, relatively flat ground. As a result, they recommended further exploration of elevated areas, including Biga and Soloc, as well as test excavations beside the covered court at Masaguitsit Elementary School and at the terraces of the Maranan property¹³.

The most defensible conclusion, therefore, is not that Lobo has yielded a single spectacular “archaeological treasure,” nor that every reported burial or vessel can already be assigned a precise date. What the evidence establishes is more significant in archaeological terms: Lobo possesses a multi-period archaeological landscape containing pottery, foreign ceramics, reported burial contexts, and other material remains that demonstrate human activity over a considerable span of time. The 2008 survey was only an initial investigation, and the researchers themselves regarded controlled excavation and wider survey as necessary before the full archaeological significance of these sites could be determined¹⁴.