{
 "schema": 1,
 "id": "arku-cave",
 "type": "find",
 "names": {
  "name": "The Arku Cave tools",
  "said": "Cagayan, northern Luzon — hafted tattoo heads from before 1500 BCE"
 },
 "region": [
  "island-southeast-asia"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "era": "prehistory"
 },
 "when": {
  "from": -1500,
  "to": -1400,
  "circa": true,
  "label": "Dated before 1500 BCE"
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "Chisel and serrated heads of probable hafted tattooing instruments, excavated in a burial site in northern Luzon.",
  "story": "They came up alongside adzes, spindle whorls, barkcloth beaters and lingling-o jade ornaments — the standard Austronesian kit — and they closely resemble the comb-type tattoo chisels found across Polynesia three thousand years later.\n\n*Inference —* a tool type that travelled the whole Pacific is sitting in a cave in Luzon before 1500 BCE. The method on this site with the widest reach is also the oldest one with surviving hardware."
 },
 "text_th": {
  "what": "หัวสิ่วและหัวหยักของเครื่องมือสักแบบติดด้าม ขุดพบในแหล่งฝังศพทางเหนือของลูซอน"
 },
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "gisi-pat-ik",
   "as": "The tool, still in use.",
   "rel": "tool"
  },
  {
   "to": "tap",
   "as": "The method.",
   "rel": "method"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:wp-batok"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-batok"
  },
  "fields": {
   "text_th": {
    "tier": "inference",
    "note": "written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated"
   }
  }
 },
 "confidence": "medium",
 "tags": [
  "archaeology"
 ],
 "updated": "2026-09-19",
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "batok",
   "type": "tradition",
   "name": "Batok",
   "as": "The tools, dug up, older than the Roman Empire by a millennium."
  },
  {
   "from": "gisi-pat-ik",
   "type": "tool",
   "name": "Gisi and pat-ik",
   "as": "Where a set of these was dug up."
  }
 ]
}