via SunStar, 15 November 2022: Short piece on an archaeological site in Pampanga.
The town of Porac is not as heavily populated as Pampanga’s major cities and towns owing to its location at the foothills of the Zambales Mountain Range, but it was precisely its location there that attracted prehistoric Kapampangans to live there in huge numbers. The marshy, swampy lowlands were prone to flooding (then as now) so our ancestors thought it wise to build their settlements in the only place in the province that was elevated enough (at that time) to keep it from perennial flooding—Porac.
In 1939, ethnographer H. Otley Beyer discovered a large burial site in Hacienda Ramona dating back to 900 A.D. In 1959, Robert Fox dug up a cemetery with 300 graves dating back to 1200 A.D., including a burial jar with a child’s bones and bangles in it. Fox declared that “it was the most extensive archaeological excavation” in the country. But nothing happened until 2001, when Kapampangan archaeologist Dr. Eusebio Dizon of the National Museum teamed up with Dr. Victor Paz of the UP Archaeological Studies Program to return to Porac and resume the diggings. Although HAU offered some help, lack of funding cut short the explorations, even if the team had already discovered more evidence of a large community in upland Porac hundreds of years before the Spaniards came in 1571.
Source: Tantingco: Big Archaeological Site in Porac – SUNSTAR
