CSEAS, Graduate Colloquium Fall Lecture Series: Laura Junker

Department of Anthropology

University of Illinois Chicago

Title: “The Archaeology of Marauders and Havens in the Middle Second Millennium A.D. Philippines: Contrasting Rugged Terrains of Evasion and Open Landscapes of Surveillance and Warfare”

Campus Life 100.

Large maritime trading chiefly polities or states developed in large river valleys in the pre-Hispanic Philippines moved goods from the mountains through wide networks connecting valuable upland products to island shores for further maritime inter-island trade. Tanjay, Cebu, Manila and other shoreline or near-coastal trade centers between the 12th and 16th centuries, tended to be complex social and economic webs connecting groups along well-known river routes, bringing upland products from large, well established river and valley routes to the coast.

However, what we might refer to as "non-sanctioned interior trade" in secretive rugged terrains allowed "piratical" marauders to develop havens that obscure their activities and use surveillance on landscapes associated with chokepoints where traders may be violently waylaid. In this lecture, Dr. Junker will discuss the "open coastal port" model at Tanjay and the "raider subterfuge" model at Bacong on Negros Island.

This event sponsored by NIU's Graduate Colloquium Program