histoy G-10 E

2. Ancient Settlements

Introduction

Sri Lanka became a human habitation one

hundred and twenty five thousand years

ago. The Homo Sapiens, who are called the

modern man, migrated to this country across

the Indian Ocean. From then on, they spread

themselves in various parts of this country and

adapted themselves to different environmental

conditions in those areas. As they lived a

considerably long time period in this country,

with time their culture too changed. Based on

those changes which occurred in their culture,

the history of human existence in Sri Lanka

has been divided into three stages. The nature

of those stages and how they lived during those

stages will be described to you in this lesson.

2.1 Settlements in the Pre-historic Era

The period which was before the past that is
described by the literary sources is commonly
named as ‘the pre-historic era’. Two cultural
stages belonged to the pre-historic era of Sri
Lanka; the first one was the Stone Age which
existed for a long time; the second was the
period in which there was more tendency of
man towards depending on herbal food, use of
metals and the beginning of living in permanent
settlements. Among these, the word prehistoric
era is used to introduce the Stone Age and the
word proto-historic era is used to introduce the
second period.

Expansion of Settlements

Settlements in Sri Lanka were made by the early
Homo Sapien man. Homo Sapien expanded his

living in a wide geographical area by adapting

himself to different climatic zones in this country.

Their main dependency method was gathering

food by roaming and hunting.

There are many places where evidence, belonging

to the Stone Age in Sri Lanka, is found. The first

one is Rathnapura and the gem mines located

around Rathnapura. The stone tools used by

these people who lived in a distant age and the

bones of some extinct animals are deposited in

the layers of soil mixed with gravel , which is

called lode found in the mines about 90 feet deep

from the ground level. The gravel layers, which

were caused by erosion of mountainous regions

due to extremely heavy rainy periods during the

Pleistocene geographical era, deposited on the

lowlands in this manner.

There is a gravel layer covered with sandy soil

mixed with clay in the ground in the semi-arid

zone in Sri Lanka. The archaeologists have

named it as the Iranamadu formation. The

Iranamadu formation was deposited during the

short warm periods of the Pleistocene era. Some

tools which belonged to the Stone Age are found

in this gravel layer too.

The Expansion of Settlements in Different

Climate Zones

The community which belonged to the Stone

Age had lived in 6 main environmental zones

in Sri Lanka. These environmental zones are

(A) Semi-arid zone (B) Lowland dry zone (C)

Lowland intermediate dry zone (D) Wet Zone

(E) Mountainous dry intermediate zone (F)

Arid zone.