[Time Trowel] Why do we only respect Indigenous peoples when they’re ancient?

A trowel (/ˈtraʊ.əl/), in the hands of an archaeologist, is like a trusty sidekick – a tiny, yet mighty, instrument that uncovers ancient secrets, one well-placed scoop at a time. It’s the Sherlock Holmes of the excavation site, revealing clues about the past with every delicate swipe.

The older something is, the more valuable we assume it must be.

We celebrate the oldest cities, the oldest churches, the oldest civilizations, and the oldest universities. Historical debates often become competitions over who arrived first or who possesses the longest history.

Several years ago, after a public presentation at the University of the Philippines on our archaeological research in Ifugao, that assumption surfaced in a deceptively simple question: “What did the Ifugao community think when the terraces were dated younger than previously believed?”

Hidden within that question was another one: If the terraces were not 2,000 years old, would they somehow become less important?

Before I could answer, Marlon Martin of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement responded: “That’s your problem as anthropologists,” he said. “You debate about the numbers. Not us.”

Then he added, more seriously: “It wasn’t the Ifugao who gave that number, it was the anthropologists. The Ifugao do not count years by numbers, it’s by generation. My grandmother was old, and the terraces are old. Old for us is generational, not by your years in numbers.”

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Marlon’s response alluded to something larger than a debate about dates. The question was never just about how old the terraces are. It was about how we assign value and authenticity. For many people, Indigenous histories appear more credible when they can be traced farther into the past, and Indigenous cultures appear more authentic when they seem untouched by change.

But why?

This way of thinking is especially apparent in how Indigenous peoples are viewed. Their histories become more credible when they can be traced farther into the past. Their cultures become more authentic when they appear untouched by change. The result is a view that treats Indigenous peoples not as living societies, but as remnants of an earlier age.

The foundations of this idea rests in colonial thinking. European colonial powers ranked societies according to supposed stages of development. History was imagined as a ladder, with Europe conveniently occupying the highest rung. Indigenous peoples were portrayed as living fossils, survivors from an earlier stage of human development.

The American colonial project in the Philippines embraced this framework. The language of benevolent assimilation rested on the assumption that Filipinos, particularly Indigenous communities, occupied lower stages of civilization and required guidance from supposedly more advanced Western societies. Underlying this project was the logic of Rudyard Kipling’s White Man’s Burden — the belief that some societies had the right, and even the duty, to civilize others.

Today, few people openly speak in such terms. Yet traces of the same thinking remain.

We continue to search for authenticity in the distant past. We celebrate Indigenous communities when they appear timeless and unchanged. We become skeptical when evidence shows innovation and transformation.

In other words, we often value Indigenous peoples most when they resemble museum exhibits.

Evidence vs assumptions

The reaction to the revised dating of the terraces exposes this mindset. Decades of research have produced a substantial body of evidence, yet some remain unmoved. When evidence repeatedly fails to change minds, the issue is usually not the evidence itself. It is the assumptions people bring to it.

If the debate were about evidence, new evidence would invite new questions. Instead, the older date is often defended with a certainty rarely found in science. The issue is no longer the evidence. It is what the number represents.

Part of the answer lies in a long history of viewing Indigenous peoples as if they exist outside of history itself. Colonial scholars and early anthropologists searched for populations that appeared isolated and untouched by history. In the Philippines, this search contributed to the popular label “original Filipinos.”

While often intended as praise, the phrase carries unpleasant baggage. It suggests that Indigenous peoples derive their value from being survivors of an earlier age rather than participants in the modern world. It places them closer to the past than to the present.

The label also carries another implication. Indigenous communities are seen as most authentic when they remain unchanged. Adapt too much, innovate too much, engage too much with the wider world, and somehow they become less Indigenous.

In a sense, Indigenous peoples are often expected to do something no other society is asked to do. They are expected to remain unchanged while the rest of the world changes.

But no society survives by standing still. Rather than celebrating cultures that appear unchanged, we should celebrate the ability of communities to resist, accommodate, innovate, and endure.

The Ifugao Rice Terraces are a case in point. Their importance is not based on their age, but in what they show about a community’s ability to respond to change. The terraces are the product of generations of cooperation and environmental knowledge that transformed mountains into productive agricultural landscapes while navigating political, economic, and ecological challenges.

Lessons on sustainability, adaptation

Adaptation is not the opposite of authenticity. It is the reason communities endure.

At a time when climate change and environmental degradation dominate global discussions, the terraces offer lessons not about age but about sustainability and the capacity of communities to respond to change.

That is the larger lesson obscured by the fixation on age and authenticity.

The importance of the Ifugao Rice Terraces does not come from attaching the oldest possible date to them. It comes from generations of people who transformed mountains into productive landscapes that sustained communities through change.

Perhaps the real question is not how old the terraces are. It is why we continue to value Indigenous peoples for their supposed antiquity rather than for their capacity to adapt, innovate, accommodate, and endure. – Rappler.com

Stephen B. Acabado is professor of anthropology at the University of California-Los Angeles. He directs the Ifugao and Bicol Archaeological Projects, research programs that engage community stakeholders. He grew up in Tinambac, Camarines Sur.