New Deal for Archaeology in the Philippines: R.A. 11961

John Peterson1*, Jose Eleazar Bersales1, and Archie Tiauzon2

Republic Act 11961, the amendment to the National Cultural Heritage Law of 2009, which now strengthens and requires Archaeological Impact Assessments on all development projects especially in urban heritage cores or suspected archaeological sites, has generated a flood of compliance projects. The authors have conducted several projects in Cebu that have contributed significant new discoveries in the region. Cebuan archaeology was known mostly from the Tenazas/Hutterer Magallanes Street excavation in the early 1970s and Masao Nishimura’s geoarchaeology project in the 1980s. It has blossomed recently through AIA projects required at the Patria development, Freedom Park and the New Carbon Market, the Parian gymnasium project, and work at Casa Gorordo Annex. Recent work in the Guadalupe Street and a resort in Mactan show that the archaeological resource is intact and very productive of new knowledge about the evolution of the urban landscape.