I have been receiving many calls and queries about Huluga for the past weeks.

I made a research and decided to make it into a timeline of archaeology work and events so it will be easy for the readers to understand how it became a controversial cultural issue.

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1970 - Israel Cabanilla of the National Museum together with Jun Gomez and Ruperto Santiago of Xavier University conducted the first archaeological exploration and excavation in Huluga, eight kilometers away from the poblacion of the city. The study area was composed of an open site and this was given the National Museum code X-91-Q and the cave site with National Museum code X-91-R. The open site is located 200 meters north of the Huluga cave site and both lie on the eastern side of Cagayan de Oro River with a distance of 270 meters.

Cabanilla and his team concentrated on the Huluga open site or HOS, where they made test pits in said area. They excavated and recovered the following artifacts:

* local pottery sherds
* 70 pieces of obsidian materials. Some were used and others were waste flakes and chips
* Two flint flakes
* A broken piece of polished adze made from solidified sandstone with a 3 1/2 cm. blade and a rectangular cross section.
* Sung and Ming dynasties surface ceramic sherds

The recovered artifacts from their test pits and the surface finds showed that the area has been continuously used by man as far back as the early Metal Age or about 500 B.C.

1975 - Dr. Erlinda Burton did an archaeological exploration and excavation in the Huluga Open Site (HOS). The excavation was made of a T form trench located in the middle of the site. The materials recovered were:

* Obsidian and chert flakes
* Pot sherds
* A glass bead

Burton believed that HOS was used as a settlement in prehispanic times. She sent some bone samples that were collected from the Huluga cave site (HCS) to the University of California in San Diego for Aspartic Acid Racemization. The samples were given the date of 350 A.D.

1992 - The third archaeologist who conducted an archaeological excavation in Huluga was Angel Bautista and he was assisted by Melvyn Garcia both from the National Museum. In his report, Bautista described the soil matrix in that area as "already disturbed due to erosion and agricultural activities of the locals." He found thin soil layers during his test pit excavation, the recovered materials were:

* Coral
* Obsidian flakes
* 4 pieces of Chert flakes
* Local pottery
* 3 Andesite cobbles
* Stoneware sherd
* 3 pieces of blue and white porcelain sherds

1999 - On Sept. 10, 1999, the Cagayan de Oro Historical and Cultural Commission (now the Cagayan de Oro City Heritage Council) invited Dr. Erlinda Burton, City Councilor Maya Enteria, Architect Erly Noval of the City Planning and Development Office, Fanny Pabito, City Tourism Officer and a team from the City Engineer's Office to inspect the Huluga Caves in sitio Taguanao, this city. My late brother, Imok who was a student and a member of the 1975 archaeological team in Huluga under Dr. Burton, was the one who first alerted the Commission about the need to protect the caves from possible destruction when the proposed third bridge and a highway will be constructed in Taguanao the following year.

After the inspection and through the efforts of the Commission, the plight of the Huluga caves was brought to the attention of the City Mayor Vicente Y. Emano who conferred with City Engr. Jorie Bingona. He later approved the plan to construct the bridge and highway several hundreds of meters away from the caves.

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2003 - Twenty eight years after she explored and excavated in HOS, Dr. Erlinda Burton, together with Antonio Montalvan and their group, the Heritage Conservation Advocates (HCA), went to Taguanao with the local media to stage their first protest against the City Government specifically Mayor Emano, whom they accused as the one who destroyed the ancient settlement of the city when he built the bridge and highway that cut across the open site. At the time of their protest, the infrastructures were almost completed.

2004 - The continuous negative publicity that was generated by HCA against Mayor Emano whom they called a "cultural terrorist," has prompted the members of the Historical Commission to recommend to the Mayor to invite a team of archaeologists from the National Museum and the Archaeological Studies Program of the University of the Philippines, to explore and excavate the HOS in order to settle once and for all this raging cultural issue. Commissioner Thaddeus Bautista was the one that made all the necessary arrangements with the archaeologists in Manila for this undertaking.

The City Government funded this extensive archaeological work that was done for two and a half weeks in the months of October-November, 2004. The team recovered 2,720 artifacts from HOS and other sites in the city. They published their findings in the " Report on the Cagayan de Oro Archaeological Project 2004" and in the archaeological journal "Hukay" Vol.7, 2005 of the UP-ASP. These are their important findings:

1. That Huluga is not an ancient settlement site of the city but only a habitational or temporary dwelling place that was used by man on certain times of the year.

2. The recovery of Paleolithic stone tools from the Dahino Property in Huluga has pushed back the age of early man in HOS to around 50,000 years ago.

3. A good candidate for the location of an ancient settlement site is in upper Macasandig where a 2mx2m square pit has yielded numerous artifacts.

4. That the other two possible sites for the ancient settlement could be on the periphery of Huluga, towards the higher elevation and steeper hills with a good view of the river. This fits what was described by the Recollect priests that first entered the fortress of Himologan in 1622.

5. The most exciting discovery was not in Huluga but at the Kros Rockshelter in Upper Balulang. The team recovered 29 pot shreds, shell fragments, a polished adze and a sackful of human bones. Through the mandibles, it was known that there were 13 adults and a year old child. The rockshelter is a secondary jar burial site, it is the first one to be discovered in Northern Mindanao.

The team is excited about the future prospects of archaeology in Cagayan de Oro. It has recommended more archaeological explorations and excavations in different areas of the city so that the study on the rich prehistoric period is sustained. (prroa50@yahoo.com)