The Exploitation of Toxic Fish from the Terminal Pleistocene in Maritime Southeast Asia: A Case Study from the Mindoro Archaeological Sites, Philippines

Abstract

Representatives of the Diodontidae family (porcupinefish) are known to have been fished by prehistoric Indo-Pacific populations; however, the antiquity of the use of this family is thus far unknown. We report here on the presence of Diodontidae in the archaeological sites of Bubog I, II, and Bilat in Mindoro, Philippines, dating back to c. 13,000 BP (Before Present). This evidence demonstrates the early exploitation by islanders of poisonous fish. Every part of porcupinefish can be toxic, but the toxicity is mostly concentrated in some organs, while other parts are edible. The continuous presence of Diodontidae remains throughout the stratigraphic record of these Philippines shell middens suggests that porcupinefish were prepared by human inhabitants of the sites to render them safe for consumption, indicating an advanced cultural knowledge of the preparation needed to separate the toxic principle from the edible parts. This constitutes one of the rare examples of poison processing by humans, aside from the contentious wooden stick poison applicator from Border Cave (South Africa).

Keywords: Diodontidae; Indo-Pacific; hunter-gatherer; marine environment; poison.

Figure 1

(a) Taxa diversity surrounding the Philippine islands (transformed data from fishbase.org, accessed on 1 May 2023) and location of Mindoro and Ilin islands where the archaeological sites are situated. (b) Aerial view of Ilin Island and Ilin Strait and location of the three archaeological sites. Bubog II is located about 300 m north of Bubog I; Ilin Island is currently less than 1 km off the west coast of Mindoro and Bilat Cave is situated approximately 8 km north of the Bubog sites.

Figure 2

Stratigraphic profiles and Diodontidae Number of Identified Specimens (NISP) and Minimum Number of Individual (MNI) per layer at (a) Bubog I, (b) Bubog II, and (c) Bilat Cave and corresponding Number Identified Specimens (NISP) of Diodontidae for every layer. The hatchings represent the number of burnt specimens for each layer. Radiocarbon dates cited were calibrated with OxCal 4.4 (using the most recent calibration curves of IntCal20 (file version intcal20.14c) for dating charcoal, and Marine 20 (file version marine20.14c) for dating marine shells and reported as modeled data at 95.4% confidence intervals) [21,22,23]. Dates published before 2020 were corrected accordingly where necessary.

Figure 3

Worldwide richness distribution (isometric 1 × 1 degree squares) of Diodontidae in Spilhaus projection (transformed data from fishbase.org, accessed on 1 May 2023).

Figure 4

(a) D. holocanthus (longspined porcupinefish) (max. TL = 50.0 cm) with (b) dermal spines of Diodon sp., c. skeleton of D. holocanthus after Carpenter and Niem [46] and Tyler [51]. Source (b): Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Reproduced with permission.

Figure 5

Diodon hystrix (a) premaxilla, Bubog II, Layer 5; (b) dentary, Bubog I, Layer 1; (c) dentary, Bilat Cave, Layer 2; (d) dentary, Bubog II, Layer 7; (e) premaxilla, Bilat Cave, Layer 2; (f) premaxilla, Bubog I, Layer 5.

Figure 6

Diodontidae dermal spines, (a) Bubog I, Layer 2; (b) Bubog I, Layer 5; (c) Bubog II, Layer 4; (d) Bubog II, Layer 5; (e) Bubog II, Layer 8; (f–j) Bubog I, charred dermal spines, Layer 5; (k–p) Bubog I, charred dermal spines, Layer 6.