Negrito in the context of "History of the Philippines"

The indigenous peoples of the Philippines are ethnolinguistic groups or subgroups that maintain partial isolation or independence throughout the colonial era, and have retained much of their traditional pre-colonial culture and practices.

The Philippines has 110 enthnolinguistic groups comprising the Philippines' indigenous peoples; as of 2010, these groups numbered at around 14–17 million persons. Austronesians make up the overwhelming majority, while full or partial Negritos scattered throughout the archipelago. The highland Austronesians and Negrito have co-existed with their lowland Austronesian kin and neighbor groups for thousands of years in the Philippine archipelago.

Aeta (Ayta /ˈaɪtə/ EYE-tə), Agta and Dumagat, are collective terms for several indigenous peoples who live in various parts of Luzon islands in the Philippines. They are included in the wider Negrito grouping of South and Southeast Asia, with whom they share superficial common physical characteristics such as: dark skin tones; short statures; frizzy to curly hair; and a higher frequency of naturally lighter hair colour (blondism) relative to the general population. They are thought to be among the earliest inhabitants of the Philippines—preceding the Austronesian migrations. Regardless, the modern Aeta populations have significant Austronesian admixture, and speak Austronesian languages.

Aeta communities were historically nomadic hunter-gatherers, typically consisting of approximately one to five families per mobile group. Groups under the "Aeta" umbrella term are normally referred to after their geographic locations or their common languages.

In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a population) for populations in which adult men are on average less than 150 cm (4 ft 11 in) tall.

Although the term is sometimes considered derogatory because it focuses on a physical trait, it remains the primary term associated with the African Pygmies, the hunter-gatherers of the Congo Basin (comprising the Bambenga, Bambuti and Batwa). The terms "Asiatic pygmies" and "Oceanic pygmies" have also been used to describe the Negrito populations of Southeast Asia and Australo-Melanesian peoples of short stature. The Taron people of Myanmar are an exceptional case of a pygmy population of East Asian phenotype.

Australo-Melanesians (also known as Australasians or the Australomelanesoid, Australoid or Australioid race) is an outdated historical grouping of various people indigenous to Melanesia and Australia. Controversially, some groups found in parts of Southeast Asia and South Asia were also sometimes included.

While most authors included Papuans, Aboriginal Australians and Melanesians (mainly from Fiji, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu), there was controversy about the inclusion of the various Southeast Asian populations grouped as "Negrito", or a number of dark-skinned tribal populations of the Indian subcontinent.

Negroid (less commonly called Congoid) is an obsolete racial grouping of various people indigenous to Africa south of the area which stretched from the southern Sahara desert in the west to the African Great Lakes in the southeast, but also to isolated parts of South and Southeast Asia (Negritos). The term is derived from now-disproven conceptions of race as a biological category.

The concept of dividing humans into three races called Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid (originally named "Ethiopian") was introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history and further developed by Western scholars in the context of "racist ideologies" during the age of colonialism.

Hominins first arrived in the Philippines during a period of lower global sea levels between 1 million years ago (1 mya) to 700,000 years ago (700 kya). Early migrations to its largest island Luzon happened in the Pleistocene and most likely began from the south in Borneo, an island once connected to mainland Asia. From there, hominins crossed narrow sea barriers and reached Luzon by passing through Palawan then Mindoro. The oldest known hominin fossils belong to the extinct Homo luzonensis, which inhabited present-day Cagayan Valley around 67 kya. The species was characterized by its short stature and relatively small brain.

The Philippines' early inhabitants were hunter-gatherers. Apart from wild pigs, deer, and bovines, they hunted a diverse range of large animals like rhinoceros, giant turtles, and elephants. The tools they manufactured were made of stone and were simple, irregularly shaped, convenient, and disposable. Dark-skinned, short-statured, and frizzy-haired peoples called Aytas or Negritos reached the archipelago by about 50–40 kya and were the first anatomically modern humans to do so.