Expert On Past Dies;82

MANILA, Philippines—Alfredo E. Evangelista, the country's foremost archeologist, died in his San Pedro, Laguna home Saturday. He was 82.

After heading the Anthropology Division of the National Museum, Evangelista retired as its deputy director in 1991.

In the course of a generation of field archeology, Evangelista discovered cultural artifacts now regarded as landmarks of the Filipino past. He joined the National Museum after obtaining a master's degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1959 under the Fulbright program.

Among Evangelista's more important finds were the earliest primary burial sites in the country—5,580 years old in Duyong Cave, Palawan; and the Laguna Copper Plate—the earliest-known legal document in the country.

From boat burial coffins on Banton Island, he recovered two pieces of the only existing prehistoric cloth in the Philippines, now declared National Cultural Treasures.