An archipelago of about 7,100 islands and islets lying about 500 miles (800 km) off the southeastern coast of Asia. A firm archaeological sequence began there c 30,000 years ago, at Tabon Cave on Palawan Island. There are Late Pleistocene stone industries, the spread of a small flake and blade technology after 5000 BC (Holocene), and the arrival and rapid spread of Austronesian-speaking horticulturists after 3000 BC. Rich jar-burial assemblages occur in the islands from about 1000 BC; bronze and iron appear later. Chinese traders visited and lived on the islands from about 1000 AD. Indian culture reached the archipelago during the 14th-16th centuries via Indonesian kingdoms, notably the Java-based kingdom of Majapahit. This is particularly noticeable in Philippine languages and literatures where Sanskrit loanwords and ancient Indian motifs abound. At the beginning of the 15th century Filipinos were primarily shifting cultivators, hunters, and fishermen with animistic beliefs. Islam was introduced later in the same century, followed by Ferdinand Magellan's discovery of the Philippines in 1521.