What connects a farmer tending his terraced pondfields in the Cordillera mountains of northern Luzon in the philippines to a fisherman off the coast of sabah in Malaysia? while the term guwan refers to digging a hole or opening on the ground in the languages of the former, a similar word, sagwan, means padding in water in the language of the other. What happened in the interim? Although historical linguistics has given us the big picture, systematic archeology is gradually filling the gaps. Whatever the approach the findings of both sciences are urging us to enrich our understanding of some of the art and artifacts of this region.