History of Cagayan de Oro

LEGEND

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Several versions of Cagayan de Oro history are online. There's a persistent romantic tale that points to the word "kagayhaan" as the origin of "cagayan", but this narrative is not historical.

Some websites also claim that the earliest discovered human bone in Cagayan de Oro is dated 1,600 BC. The correct figure is 377 AD.

In 2004, a team from the University of the Philippines-Archaeological Studies Program (UP-ASP) made a misleading report about the Huluga archaeological settlement site, calling it a "camp-like" area despite the presence of a large number of fossils, artifacts, and a midden. The team was paid P450,000 by former mayor Vicente Y. Emano, the same person who had destroyed a huge portionof this heritage site.

The authority on Cagayan de Oro history is Dr. Antonio J. Montalvan II of Capitol University. His articleon the subject is in the website of the Heritage Conservation Advocates (HCA). Excerpt below:

Settlement

CAGAYAN DE ORO AND ITS SURROUNDING were occupied by humans around 377 AD. Signs of ancient habitation were discovered in 1970 by field researchers of the National Museum.

Huluga settlement as interpreted by Nonoy Estarte of Museo de Oro, Xavier University.

The researchers were exploring Huluga, a place eight kilometers south of the present Cagayan de Oro City. Huluga is composed of caves and an Open Site perched on a promontory, overlooking Cagayan River. The Open Site is the venue of a fortified village, the home of the original people of Cagayan de Oro.

Inside the caves were skeletons, pots, potsherds, tools, possibly Indian glass beads, Chinese pot fragments, and vestiges of possibly Annamese and Thai wares -- indications of overseas trading. The Open Site yielded potsherds, Chinese celadon sherds, and obsidian flakes.

Researchers sent a skull fragment to Dr. Jeffrey Bada of the Scripps Institution of Oceanographyin La Jolla, California, where it was subjected to acid racemization, a dating technique. Bada then wrote a letter to anthropologist Dr. Erlinda M. Burton of Xavier University, stating that the sample came from 377 AD, plus or minus 15 years -- a period comprising Late Stone Age and Early Metal Age. More

Updated March 12, 2008.