Prehistory of Sri Lanka
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[edit] Palaeolithic
During the last one million years, when humans are known to have existed in various parts of India (v. Mishra 1995), Sri Lanka was connected to the sub-continent on numerous occasions. The rise and fall of sea level (due to cold/warm fluctuations in the global climate) determined the periodicities of these connections, the last separation having occurred at ca. 7000 BP (Deraniyagala 1992: 167). Hence it is impossible to view Sri Lankan prehistory in isolation from India.
It is possible that the first settlers from India reached Sri Lanka at least as early as one million years ago - perhaps earlier. So far, evidence on this score has not been forthcoming, but this need not signify that there were no humans in Sri Lanka at that period. Environmentally there would have been no hindrance whatsoever to hominid settlement, in terms of both accessibility and exploitable food and water.
There are, however, ancient coastal sands in the north and southeast of the island which could be as early as 250,000 (or even 700,000-500,000) BP (ibid: 686, 688). Whether these sands contain evidence of human habitation has yet to be determined, a prime research goal for the future.
By about 125,000 BP if is certain that there were prehistoric settlements in Sri Lanka (ibid.: 686). The evidence stems from excavations conducted in coastal deposits near Bundala.These people made tools of quartz (and a few on chert) which are assignable to a Middle Palaeolithic complex (ibid.: 252-4,458,688). Apart from such tools, no other vestiges of their culture have survived the ravages of time and tropical weathering: we do not know what these people looked like, although it can be guessed that they were early Homo sapiens sapiens akin to anatomically modern South Asians. Even the sizes of their settlements are not known due to the limited scale of the evaluation excavations; surface indications are ca.50 square metres or less per site. That they lived by hunting and gathering is obvious and it is probable that this conformed to the pattern discernible in the activities of their descendants some 100,000 years later. We do know, however, that the physical and biotic environments of these early humans, from the Middle Pleistocene onwards, fluctuated between pluvial and interpluvial episodes (ibid.: 178-82, 436-40; id. 1991: 14-7) with corresponding oscillations in animal and food-plant resources which would have been reflected in shifts in human population densities. It is estimated that during certain pluvial episodes in South Asia, as at ca. 125,000 BP, The population density in the Dry Zone of northern, eastern and southern Sri Lanka (for ecozones v. ibid.: app. I) could have ranged between 1.5 and 0.8 individuals per square kilometre, whereas the Wet Zone in the west would have had densities of 0.1 or less. It has been hypothesised that interpluvials witnessed a narrower dichotomy in the zonal population densities, the respective estimates being less than 0.3 for the Dry Zone and over 0.1 for the Wet Zone. These figures are derived from ethnographic sources pertaining to South and Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers. Given the postulated densities of the food supplies, it is unlikely that large communities in excess of a couple of nuclear families were the norm, except perhaps along the northern and eastern coasts with their rich resources of marine foods (id. 1992: 178-82, 436-44).
[edit] Mesolithic
From about 34,000 BP onwards the prehistoric record is very much more complete. The information stems from a series of cave excavations in the lowland Wet Zone: Fa Hien Lena near Bulathsinhala (34,000?5400 C14 BP), Batadomba-lena near Kuruwita (28,500-11,500 C14 BP), Beli-lena at Kitulgala (over27,000-3500 C14 BP), Alu-lena at Attanagoda near Kegalle (10,500 C14 BP). These data are supplemented by those from the open-air site of Bellan-bandi Palassa near Embilipitiya (6500 TL BP). The dating is based primarily on radiocarbon assays on charcoal, checked independently against thermoluminescence dating in the case of Beli-lena. There are over 50 such dates from various contexts at these sites and the chronological framework may be pronounced secure (ibid.: 695-701).
Fa Hien Lena has yielded the earliest evidence (at ca. 34,000 C14 BP) of anatomically modern man in South Asia, followed by Batadomba-lena at 28,500 and 16,000, Beli-lena at 13,000, Fa Hien at 6900, Bellan-bandi Palassa at 6500 and Fa Hien again at 4800 BP. These human remains have been subjected to detailed physical anthropological study and it has been affirmed that the genetic continuum from at least as early as 16,000 BP at Batadomba-lena to Beli-lena at 13,000 BP to Bellan-bandi Palassa at 6500 BP to the recent Vadda aboriginal population is remarkably pronounced (ibid.: 468-9; Kennedy 1974; Kennedy et al. 1987; the earlier material from Fa Hien Lena is too fragmentary for such comparative study). This suggests a backwater in terms of population dynamics. It appears to have been a remarkably static situation over so long a period, relatively undisturbed by the arrival of new populations with diverse physical traits. These anatomically modern prehistoric humans in Sri Lanka are referred to as Balangoda Man in popular parlance (derived from his being responsible for the Mesolithic 'Balangoda Culture' first defined in sites near Balangoda). He stood at an estimated height of ca. 174 cm for males and 166 cm for females in certain samples, which is considerable when compared with present-day populations in Sri Lanka (v. Deraniyagala 1992: 330-4). The bones are robust, with thick skull-bones, prominent brow-ridges, depressed noses, heavy jaws and short necks. The teeth are conspicuously large. These traits have survived in varying degrees among the Vaddas and certain Sinhalese groups, thus pointing to Balangoda Man as a common ancestor. It needs to be borne in mind, however, that there would have been unimpeded gene-flow between southernmost India and Sri Lanka (in both directions) from the Palaeolithic onwards, and that future research will probably reveal a whole range of genetic clusters in the prehistoric populations of this region, which would invalidate the concept of Balangoda Man as a homogeneous 'race' (cf. id. 1990: 17,20).
Meanwhile, Balangoda Man continues to be a useful working concept, referring to the island's late Quaternary humans. He appears to have settled in practically every nook and corner of Sri Lanka ranging from the damp and cold High Plain's such as Maha-eliya (Horton Plains) to the arid lowlands of Mannar and Vilpattu, to the steamy equatorial rainforests of Sabaragamuwa. The camps were invariably small, rarely exceeding 50 m² in area, thus suggesting occupation by not more than a couple of nuclear families at most (id. 1992: 351). This life-style could not have been too different from that described for the Vaddas of Sri Lanka, the Kadar, Malapantaram and Chenchus of India, the Andaman lslanders and the Semang of Malaysia (ibid.: 412-21, 451-7). They would have been moving from place to place on an annual cycle of foraging for food. The well preserved evidence from the caves and Bellan bandi Palassa indicates that a very wide range of food-plants and animals were exploited. Among the former, canarium nuts, wild breadfruit and wild bananas are prominent. It is probable that dioscorea yams, such as Dioscorea spicata, D. pentaphylla and D. oppositifolia were staples in the diet, as they were among South Asian hunters and gatherers in recent times. It appears as if every conceivable type of animal had been eaten, ranging from elephants to snakes, rats, snails and small fish (ibid.: 451-2). This diet would have been well balanced as attested by the robusticity of the human skeletal remains. The degeneration of bone that accompanies a specialised starchy diet and a sedentary life style had yet to set in.
The tool kit of Balangoda Man is distinguished by the occurrence of geometric microliths, comprising small (less than 4 cm long) flakes of quartz and (rarely) chert fashioned into stylised lunate, triangular and trapezoidal forms (ibid.: 266-70, 688-94). Such geometric microliths have traditionally been considered the hallmark of the Mesolithic period as first defined in Europe. The earliest dates for the geometric microlithic tradition in Europe are around 12,000 BP. Hence it came as a surprise when such tools were found as early as 28,500 C14 BP at Batadomba-lena, 28,000 BP at two coastal sites in Bundala and over 27,000 BP at Beli-lena. Sri Lanka has yielded evidence of this sophisticated technological phase some 16,000 years earlier than in Europe. However, this apparent anomaly has been resolved by the discovery of geometric microliths in various parts of Africa, such as Zaire and southern Africa, from contexts in excess of 27,000 BP, thereby suggesting that Europe was late in manifesting this techno-tradition due to as yet undefined reasons.
Apart from stone tools, artefacts of bone and antler are quite prolific from 28,500 BP onwards, notably small bone points (ibid.: 278-81). Beads of shell have also been discovered from these early contexts and the occurrence of marine shells in inland sites such as Batadomba-lena points to an extensive network of contacts between the coast and the hinterland. There is evidence from Beli-lena that salt had been brought in from the coast at a date in excess of 27,000 BP (ibid.: 326).
Sri Lanka has yet to produce unequivocal evidence of Stone Age art. The cave art observed in various parts of the Dry Zone are the works of Vaddas, as demonstrated by ethnographers, although a certain proportion of it could conceivably be prehistoric (ibid.: 465). Similarly there is little evidence of manifestations of ritual. There are, however, clear that the norm was for Balangoda Man to inter his dead as secondary burials within his camp floors, having selected certain bones for this purpose; and at Ravanalla cave and Fa Hien Lena red ochre had been ceremonially smeared on the bones. Both these practices have been matched by the mortuary customs of the Andaman Islanders, but not by those of the Vaddas. It is possible that the latter, through a process of cultural retrogression, ceased to practise the more elaborate mortuary customs of their ancestors (ibid.: 465-7, 696).
[edit] References
- Siran U. Deraniyagala, Early Man and the Rise of Civilisation in Sri Lanka: The Archaeological Evidence
- Siran U. Deraniyagala, The Prehistory of Sri Lanka, Parts. I, II. Colombo: Archaeological Survey Department. 1992.
- Kenneth A. R. Kennedy and Siran U. Deraniyagala, Fossil remains of 28,000-year old hominids from Sri Lanka, Current Anthropology, Vol. 30, No. 3. (Jun., 1989), pp. 394-399.
- Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, T. Disotell, W. J. Roertgen, J. Chiment and J. Sherry, Biological anthropology of upper Pleistocene hominids from Sri Lanka: Batadomba Lena and Beli Lena caves, Ancient Ceylon 6: 165-265.
- Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, Siran U. Deraniyagala, W. J. Roertgen, J. Chiment and T. Disotell, Upper Pleistocene fossil hominids from Sri Lanka, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 72: 441-461, 1987.
[edit] External links
- This page incorporates content from Dr. Rohan Hettiarachchi's [1] used with permission of website owner.
- Pre-and Protohistoric Settlement in Sri Lanka
- Prehistoric basis for the rise of civilisation in Sri Lanka and southern India
