Callao Cave () is one of 300

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

s located in the

Barangay A barangay (; abbreviated as Brgy. or Bgy.), historically referred to as barrio (abbreviated as Bo.), is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district, or ward. In metropolita ...

s of Magdalo and Quibal in the municipality of Peñablanca, about northeast of

Tuguegarao City Tuguegarao ( or ), officially the City of Tuguegarao ( ibg, Siyudad nat Tugegaraw; itv, Siyudad yo Tugegaraw; ilo, Siudad ti Tuguegarao; fil, Lungsod ng Tuguegarao ), is a 3rd class component city and capital of the province of Cagayan, Phili ...

, the capital of

Cagayan Cagayan ( ), officially the Province of Cagayan ( ilo, Probinsia ti Cagayan; ibg, Provinsiya na Cagayan; itv, Provinsiya ya Cagayan; fil, Lalawigan ng Cagayan), is a province in the Philippines located in the Cagayan Valley region, covering ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

within the Peñablanca Protected Landscape and Seascape in the western foothills of the Northern Sierra Madre Mountains on

Luzon Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...

island in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. The town Peñablanca's ( es, white rocks) name refers to the predominance of white limestone rock formations in the area. First excavated in 1980 by Maharlika Cuevas, the seven-chamber show cave is the best known natural tourist attraction of the Cagayan province and in February 2020 has officially been recognized as an ''important cultural property'' of the Philippines. Fossils of archaic humans, that lived during the Late

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

were first discovered in the cave and documented in 2007 by a team led by Armand Salvador Mijares from the

University of the Philippines The University of the Philippines (UP; fil, Pamantasan ng Pilipinas Unibersidad ng Pilipinas) is a state university system in the Philippines. It is the country's national university, as mandated by Republic Act No. 9500 (UP Charter of 20 ...

and eventually confirmed in 2019 as to belong to a previously unknown and now extinct human sub-species - ''Callao Man'' or ''

Homo luzonensis ''Homo luzonensis'', also locally called "Ubag" after a mythical caveman, is an extinct, possibly pygmy peoples, pygmy, species of archaic human from the Late Pleistocene of Luzon, the Philippines. Their remains, teeth and phalanges, are known on ...

''.

Protection status

Callao Cave was visited by American Governor-General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. in 1932 who under his term created the National Park system of the country with the passing of Act No. 3195 in 1932. Callao Cave was one of the earliest national parks of the country when it was established on July 16, 1935 by Proclamation no. 827. The ''Callao Cave National Park'' encompassed an area of of land. With the passing of the NIPAS Act of 1992 that revamped the protected areas of the country, the Callao National Park was reclassified but enlarged by Proclamation no. 416 on June 29, 1994. The protected area was reestablished as the ''Peñablanca Protected Landscape''. In 2003 upon the recommendation of the

Department of Environment and Natural Resources The Department of Environment and Natural Resources ( fil, Kagawaran ng Kapaligiran at Likas na Yaman, DENR or KKLY) is the executive department of the Philippine government responsible for governing and supervising the exploration, developmen ...

(DENR), the protected area was further enlarged to include certain parcels of land in the public domain. Proclamation 416 no. was amended by Proclamation no. 484, signed by President Arroyo on October 6, 2003. The law enlarged the park to and renamed as the Peñablanca Protected Landscape and Seascape (PPLS). The protected area is particularly described as bounded on the North and East of Public Forest under FR-1011 per Proclamation No. 584 dated July 8, 1940; on the South by Callao Reforestation Project and on the West by Block I, Alienable and Disposable of Cagayan Project No. 13-C, Certified on February 27, 1923.

Features

More than 300 caves dot the protected area, 75 of which have been documented by the National Museum since 1977. The Callao Cave and the nearby, but more challenging, Sierra Cave are easily accessible by automobile.Bloom, Greg; Grosberg, Michael; etc. (2011)
"Lonely Planet"
pg. 209. Lonely Planet Publications. Retrieved on 2013-10-04. The Callao Cave is the premier attraction in the Peñablanca Protected Landscape and Seascape. It is the most accessible of all the caves, its entrance is reached by climbing 184 concrete steps. The Callao Cave system is composed of seven chambers, each with natural crevices above that let streams of light to get into the cave, serving as illumination for the otherwise dark areas of the place. Previously, there were reported nine caves in the system, but an earthquake in the 1980s cut off the last two chambers.Dalton, David (2011-10-03)
"The Rough Guide to the Philippines, 3rd edition"
pg. 158. Rough Guides (publisher). The first chamber of the show cave is the largest room with a width of about and a height of ."Peñablanca"
. Cagayan Province Official Website. Retrieved on 2013-10-04. The cathedral-like room has been turned into a chapel by the local people. A rock formation serves as the altar of the chapel lit by a stream of light coming from a rooftop opening. The conditions inside the caves have caused the formation of stalactites and stalagmites, more so in the deeper chambers. Several spectacular

speleothem A speleothem (; ) is a geological formation by mineral deposits that accumulate over time in natural caves. Speleothems most commonly form in calcareous caves due to carbonate dissolution reactions. They can take a variety of forms, depending ...

s or formations are found inside the cave like

flowstone Flowstones are sheetlike deposits of calcite or other carbonate minerals, formed where water flows down the walls or along the floors of a cave. They are typically found in "solution caves", in limestone, where they are the most common speleoth ...

s, glittering dripstones, cave curtains, crystal

helictite A helictite is a speleothem (cave-formed mineral) found in a limestone cave that changes its axis from the vertical at one or more stages during its growth. Helictites have a curving or angular form that looks as if they were grown in zero gra ...

s, columns, etc."Cagayan - Caving Capital of the Philippines"
Travel to the Philippines.info. Retrieved on 2013-10-04.

Stratification

The analysis of the sediments and depositions in the cave confirm human occupation of the cave as early as 67,000 years B.P. However, the next human habitation strata, that contains cultural depositions (charcoal, hearths and chert flake tools) and dates to ca. 25,000 years B.P. only lies on top of a thick almost completely sterile layer. The most recent occupation horizon, on top of a layer of volcanic depositions dates to the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

(around 3,600 years B.P.) and contained ceramic shards, stone tool fragments, faunal remains and human burials. The results demonstrate, that the Callao cave was only intermittently occupied during the last 70,000 years.

Classification

Callao Cave is classified by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources as a Class II cave. This describes caves with areas that have hazardous conditions and contain sensitive geological, archaeological, cultural, historical, and biological values or high quality ecosystems. Such caves are open to experienced spelunkers or caving enthusiasts and guided visits, although some portions may be closed seasonally or permanently for conservation purposes. The Bat Cave near Callao Cave is a Class III cave meaning they are 'generally safe' for inexperienced visitors. They have no known threatened species within, nor any archaeological, geological, historical, or cultural values. Economic activities, such as collection of guano and

edible bird's nest Edible bird's nests are bird nests created by edible-nest swiftlets, Indian swiftlets, and other swiftlets using solidified saliva, which are harvested for human consumption. They are particularly prized in Chinese culture due to their rarity ...

, are allowed in such caves."DENR classifies 158 more caves"
. Philippine Information Agency. Retrieved on 2013-10-04.

''Homo luzonensis''

''Homo luzonensis'' refers to human fossils first discovered inside Callao Cave in 2007 by a team made up of Filipino, French and Australian archeologists led by Armand Salvador Mijares. Although tentatively considered by the scientific community as remains of ''Homo sapiens'', the find, that consisted of a single

metatarsal The metatarsal bones, or metatarsus, are a group of five long bones in the foot, located between the tarsal bones of the hind- and mid-foot and the phalanges of the toes. Lacking individual names, the metatarsal bones are numbered from the me ...

(foot bone) was dubbed as ''Callao Man''. When dated using

uranium series In nuclear science, the decay chain refers to a series of radioactive decays of different radioactive decay products as a sequential series of transformations. It is also known as a "radioactive cascade". Most radioisotopes do not decay direct ...

ablation, it was found to be at least 67,000 years old. This significantly antedates the 47,000-year-old remains of the

Palawan Palawan (), officially the Province of Palawan ( cyo, Probinsya i'ang Palawan; tl, Lalawigan ng Palawan), is an archipelagic province of the Philippines that is located in the region of Mimaropa. It is the largest province in the country in t ...

Tabon Man Tabon Man refers to remains discovered in the Tabon Caves in Lipuun Point in Quezon, Palawan in the Philippines. They were discovered by Robert B. Fox, an American anthropologist of the National Museum of the Philippines, on May 28, 1962. The ...

and represents the earliest human fossil yet found in the Philippines and it also ranks among the oldest traces of human presence in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

and the entire Asia-Pacific region. In 2010, more fossils were unearthed and after Armand Salvador Mijares and his team discovered further material in 2015 (seven teeth and six small bones) a thorough anthropological and genetic study was undertaken. On April 10, 2019, the team of paleoanthropologists Florent Détroit and Armand Salvador Mijares published the conclusions in the journal ''Nature'', announcing the taxon of this newly identified human species to be ''Homo luzonensis'', which definitely lived on Luzon island between 50,000 to 67,000 years ago. As the discovery adds a new chapter to the complex history of human evolution, Armand Mijares remarked, that it ''puts the Philippines...which always had been peripheral in this debate...in the spotlight of human evolution''. Anthropological studies suggested, that Callao Man, like

Homo floresiensis ''Homo floresiensis'' also known as "Flores Man"; nicknamed "Hobbit") is an extinct species of small archaic human that inhabited the island of Flores, Indonesia, until the arrival of modern humans about 50,000 years ago. The remains of an in ...

from

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

was less than four feet tall. Researchers have also noted, that the indigenous

Aeta people The Aeta (Ayta ), Agta, or Dumagat, are collective terms for several Filipino indigenous peoples who live in various parts of the island of Luzon in the Philippines. They are considered to be part of the Negrito ethnic groups and share common ...

, who live in the mountains of

Luzon Island Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, ...

, might be descendants of Callao Man.

Other caves

Other pristine and undisturbed caves with living rock formations in the Peñablanca Protected Landscape and Seascape include Jackpot, Laurente, Odessa-Tumbali, Quibal, Roc, San Carlos, and Sierra Caves, among others. These caves may be explored with guides from Sierra Madre Outdoor Club, Adventures and Expedition Philippines Inc., and North Adventurer. Daily circadian flight of bats from the Bat Cave occur at dusk."Callao Caves"
Department of Tourism. Retrieved on 2013-10-01.

References

External links

*
Photo of the Callao Cave's 1st Chamber from Panoramio

Photo of the Callao Cave's 3rd Chamber from Panoramio

Photo of the Callao Cave's 4th Chamber from Panoramio

Photo of the Callao Cave's 5th Chamber from Panoramio

2019 article on Homo luzonensis in ''Nature''
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