Case file · Folklore / legend
The Tasaday 'Stone Age tribe'
In 1971 the Marcos government announced the discovery of the Tasaday, a small group in the Mindanao rainforest said to live with Stone Age tools in total isolation; in 1986 journalists alleged the whole thing was a hoax.
1971 CE · 6.32, 124.68 · status: disputed
The account
The story made world headlines and a National Geographic cover. The area was closed to outsiders under the minister Manuel Elizalde.
The sceptical view
Later linguistic and anthropological work suggests the Tasaday were real people, a band of a local Manobo group, but that their isolation and 'Stone Age' life were greatly exaggerated.