In the 1970s and ' LXXX , a group of hoi polloi dwell in the jungle of Mindanao Island in the Philippines caught the attention of both the media and anthropologist . The first clock time was for their discovery , and the second for alleged fraud .

The Tasaday people werefirst " discovered " in 1971 . report claimed that 26 people were living in caves , bust niggling wearable , using Stone Age prick , and speaking their own distinctive oral communication . With no liaison with or knowledge of the remote mankind , the mathematical group acted ashunter - gatherer , unaware of how to farm on their own .

" Although their economic system is essentially and traditionally based on food - aggregation , they have since 1966 learned to snare several sort of animals , " areporton the radical in 1972 read . " Preliminary linguistic evidence suggests the Tasaday have been isolated from their nearest non - forest neighbor for 600 age or more . This conclusion , like the report in general , is tentative . "

It was report as a vast find , and the tribe were written about worldwide . National Geographic give rise a documentary on the group . The next class , Manuel Elizalde Jr – a wealthy politician who also happened to have lead the discovery team – coif up camps from which the Tasaday could be keep . Politicians , celebrities , and diary keeper were allowed to call in the clique to watch the Tasaday go about their " Stone Age " lives . But scientist , anthropologist , and social scientists were not .

Before the coterie was closed after that yr , only a few anthropologists – carefully chosen by Elizalde Jr – were let to get stuffy to these fresh - discovered the great unwashed . At the end of that twelvemonth , Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos banned visitors to the Tasaday ’s home , putting the whole expanse off terminal point until after he was deposed in 1986 .

After citizenry were allowed to travel to again , call of a put-on began to circulate .

In 1986 , a Swiss journalist who claimed to have visit the Tasaday reported that locals hadtold him that the chemical group was a hoax : " a mixed group of Manobos and Tbolis motivated by hope of landed estate and money to represent the part of cave - dwelling , stonetool - using primitive whenever Elizalde required them to do so . " presently there were claims at an anthropology conference that some of the Tasaday werecollege educated , and were stemma relatives of the great unwashed living outside the Tasaday expanse , though this too is a doubtful claim with little evidence .

Neverthless , hunch of duplicity abounded , largely revolve about around Elizalde , who profited from the discovery frommoney he had secure to support the radical .

" Given that they were key by Elizalde , that Elizalde lead the diary keeper in situ , and that Ferdinand Marcos , after having announce martial law in 1972 , promulgate a fiat ( Presidential Decree No . 1032 ) that made the Tasaday territory a reservation on which no one could get into without prior permission – a permission that , to my knowledge , was never fit in to any alien anthropologist – it becomes all too obvious that the Filipino government activity encouraged , if not engineered , their rise to celebrity , "   anthropologist Jean - Paul Dumontwrote .

Both report – that they had been isolated for hundreds of years , or that they were perpetrating a put-on – had their downsides , with a probable explanation that they were a group that had been almost completely isolate from the remainder of the world , but not for as long as was made out by Elizalde . grounds for this was found in the language they used , which had law of similarity to local languages of 150 years prior , suggest a fierce day of the month for a potential split .

" The language that they spoke did seem to be trenchant from the smother arena , advise some sort of isolation from the linguistic evidence presently usable , I resolve that the Tasaday may have been living in near isolation from other group , as they have systematically asserted , but that the isolation may have go for only a few generations , possibly no more than 150 years , " linguist Lawrence Reidwrote of the Tasadayin 1992 .

" Otherwise , bang-up differences would be apparent between the Tasaday speech variety and that of its closest relatives . "

In 1988 , President Corazan Aquino pronounced the Tasaday people an authentic nonage group , part of the Lumad chemical group of Indegenous mass in the southern Phillipines , but good deal of scholars remain skeptical , and deal we ’re no close to conclusive evidence if the whole matter was a hoax or not .